Dr. Erhard Fernholz
MD of Telexos
Telexos develops products for the clinical cancer research market and for the personalized cancer diagnostics market. Focus of the developments is the detection and analysis of rare cells in blood, in particular circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and rare immune cells. Telexos started its laboratory in mid 2019.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be detected in all solid tumors and are shed into the blood stream early on. CTCs have the advantage that the information (protein, RNA, DNA) of the different CTC-phenotypes are not mixed with others but are contained. Therefore, changes within the mixture of phenotypes during therapy can be easier detected.
Since CTCs can be rare (e.g. 1 CTC in 10 billion blood cells) and quite heterogenous (reflecting the significant heterogeneity of the cells within a tumor of the same patient), it is mandatory to capture and analyze all available CTCs in a given blood sample. If not, important information in respect to determining the best available therapy and monitoring (and possibly adapting) the therapy in a personalized manner may be missed.
