New method revolutionizes cancer diagnosis
How does cancer arise? How does cellular composition influence tumor malignancy? These questions are profound and challenging to answer, but are crucial to understand the disease and find the right cure. Now, a German-Danish team led by Professor Matthias Mann has developed a ground-breaking technology called ‘Deep Visual Proteomics’. This method provides researchers and clinicians with a protein read-out to understand cancer at single cell-type resolution. The technology was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology and demonstrates its potential in a first application to cancer cells.
Proteins are among the most important players in a variety of diseases. Aptly referred to as the 'molecular workhorses of the cell’, their proper function often determines the fitness of a cell and that of an individual by extension. Matthias Mann explains: “When something goes wrong inside our cells and we become sick, you can be sure that proteins are involved in a wide range of different ways. Because of this, mapping the protein landscape can help us determine why a tumor could develop in a particular patient, what vulnerabilities that tumor has and also what treatment strategy might prove the most beneficial.”