TECHNOLOGY IN THE SERVICE OF HEALTH
Our fight for early cancer detection
For more than 10 years, Life Length has been researching the usefulness of telomeres as predictive and prognostic markers for oncological diseases, with our studies in prostate cancer and lung cancer.
TELOMERES AND CANCER
Tumor cells work differently from normal cells.
As a cell becomes cancerous, it divides more frequently, and its telomeres shorten faster.
He cancer cells avoid senescence/death and instead become immortal with the ability to replicate indefinitely, even when telomeres are short.
In addition, sometimes the expression and activity of telomerase (the enzyme responsible for repairing and lengthening telomeres) is increased in tumours compared to normal cells. All of this ultimately results in uncontrolled growth of the tumour cells..
Therefore, alterations in telomere length are a good candidate biomarker for cancer.
The relationship between telomere length and cancer has been widely demonstrated, with more than 7,000 peer-reviewed scientific and clinical publications in this specific field.
ONCOCHECK is a set of clinical studies conducted by Life Length between 2017 and 2022 with funding granted by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
The objective of the ONCOCHECK project was the clinical validation of telomere-associated variables (TAVs) as oncological biomarkers by managing and analysing massive amounts of data with the aim of generating algorithms to improve cancer management.
The ONCOCHECK project made it possible to analyse TAVs in a wide variety of cancers including solid tumours, leukaemia, and childhood tumours, among others.
THE NEW BIOMARKER THROUGH TELOMERE DETECTION IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF PROSTATE CANCER
Our biomarker received the AEMPS (Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products) approval for use within the EU (CE IVD)
References
- Rubio Galisteo, J.M., Fernández, L., Gómez Gómez, E. et al. Telomere-based risk models for the early diagnosis of clinically significant prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 24, 88–95 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41391-020-0232-4
- de Pedro, N., Díez, M., García, I. et al. Analytical Validation of Telomere Analysis Technology® for the High-Throughput Analysis of Multiple Telomere-Associated Variables. Biol Proced Online 22, 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12575-019-0115-z
