'Liquid Biopsy' for Treatment of Melanoma: Dr Elin Gray, ECU's School of Medical Scie

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07/30/23

Dr Elin Gray, Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Melanoma from the School of Medical Sciences at Edith Cowan University (ECU), presents her research "Development of a 'Liquid Biopsy' for Personalised Treatment of Melanoma" in ECU's 2012 Your Research In a Nutshell Competition.

Dr Gray's research focuses on circulating melanoma cells. These circulating cells are a sample of the tumour and can indicate metastasis especially after the primary tumour has been removed. Her research looks at developing a methodology to analyse the cells.

Where the primary tumour has been removed and there are circulating melanoma cells, there is a risk that patients might develop metastasis. Dr Gray indicates there is another school of thought which considers that is is not the total number of circulating cells, rather a proportion that have the capacity to metastasise.

Dr Gray and other Medical Sciences researchers are working to develop a methodology to characterise circulating cells by measuring different parameters on the surface of these cells. The researchers have found at least two markers are present more regularly in patients with metastatic disease than early stage cancer patients. She emphasises the importance of correlating the presence of some of these markers and the development of metastatism metastases in later stages, so researchers can use the markers to assess the risk of a patient developing metastatic disease.

Given the circulating melanoma cells are a sample of the tumour, her research is looking at sampling blood rather than doing a tumour biopsy. So patients can be tested more regularly. This also has application to the area of targeted therapy.

For more information on Dr Elin Gray, see:
http://www.ecu.edu.au/schools/....medical-sciences/sta

ECU's Your Research in a Nutshell Competition is open to "early career" researchers at ECU. Participants present on their research, with presentations limited to 5 minutes/less, using only 3 presentation slides.

The 2012 Your Research in a Nutshell competition ran during ECU's Research Week 17-21 September 2012: http://www.ecu.edu.au/research/week/overview