How does the structure of DNA change during the different stages of development of breast cancer? And can these changes allow an early diagnosis of the disease? These are the two questions that the teams involved in a new research project at the Center Georges-François Leclerc in Dijon will try to answer.
A machine that is rarely found in France
A project made possible thanks to the help provided by Rotary, which recently awarded an endowment of 58,500 euros to the Dijon establishment in order to acquire a device essential for this work. Her name ? The Femto Pulse.
A tool, rare in France, “essential for using 3rd generation sequencers and allowing the quantification and qualification of DNA and RNA”. All with a “sensitivity 10 times higher for smears and up to ‘to 100 times for the fragments’ than the devices previously present in Dijon.
A project extended to other types of cancer?
For the moment, three people are involved in this project: “Sandy Chevrier, assistant engineer, in charge of the technical part of the project with the preparation and qualification of samples as well as the generation of raw data; Corentin Richard, bioinformatician, for the bioinformatics analyzes of the data and Romain Boidot, molecular biologist, in charge of the interpretation of the data “.
Initially, this project will focus on breast cancer, but in the future, other types of cancer could be analyzed if the initial work proves conclusive.
Indeed, no study has yet compared the structural variations of DNA between the different stages of breast cancer development. It is therefore possible that structural variations in DNA occur very quickly, or even before the appearance of the majority of mutations. Just like, it could be that this technique does not help in an early detection …
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