KVIA-TV ABC-7 News El Paso recently spotlighted the groundbreaking work of OCRA-funded researcher Daniel Heller, PhD of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, whose research lab is working to develop a liquid biopsy that uses nanotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect ovarian cancer earlier.

We’re developing a liquid biopsy that uses nano sensors and AI in order to make treatment decisions and detect cancers early,” said Dr. Heller in an interview with journalist Marcel Clarke for ABC-7. “Ovarian cancer is one cancer that really needs better strategies for early detection.

Dr. Heller’s team is creating nanosensors capable of measuring multiple proteins and smaller molecules in the blood — producing a kind of “fingerprint” of the disease rather than relying on a single biomarker. This approach could transform how ovarian cancer is identified, monitored, and managed in the years ahead.

[Our] technology is detecting many proteins at once, as well as smaller molecules in the blood,” Dr. Heller explained. “The idea is to get from these kinds of technologies a fingerprint of the disease… What we’ve found is that we’ve been able to detect some early cancers in early ovarian cancer patients just using blood, and we hope that we can expand this for use to many patients as a potential screening test. Right now the idea is that it can potentially detect stage one and two cancers, and that’s really where we want to get.

Dr. Heller is a 2023 recipient of OCRA’s Collaborative Research Development Grant – Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab.

Read the article “Nanotech aims to catch ovarian cancer early” at KVIA.com.

View more stories about Dr. Heller’s OCRA-funded research toward early ovarian cancer detection:

Dr. Heller’s grant was made possible in part by generous donations from The Edmée Firth Fund for Research in Ovarian Cancer (EFFROC); and The Teal Foundation.