Liquid Biopsy for Cancer Screening: What's Proven and What's Still Under Research

For example, sickle cell anaemia is caused by a point mutation where only one letter in the genome is changing. So what we can do is if A is becoming B, we make the B back to A and edit that gene, and deliver it through an IV cannula in the form of a solution. That is what is going to get integrated into the patient, and the disease can be cured. That is what gene therapy is.

Well, not yet. What we can do is, supposing somebody in my family got cancer, I can get my genes tested so I know whether I am at risk of getting that cancer, and then I can try to catch it early, because once you're at a last stage it becomes difficult to cure. If you catch it early you can still cure the cancer.

The recommendation is to test at least 50 genes. If somebody is interested I can send the list across to the Jivo team and they can share it with everybody.

Yes, that is what is called designer babies, which can be done. You cannot really extract only particular genes, but you can make designer babies now in the lab through clinical embryology.

The difference between genetics and genomics: you are a clinician, you are seeing the patient. What you see in the patient is genetics. What I do in the lab is genomics.

A blood test that looks for circulating tumour DNA, aiming to detect cancer without needing tissue taken directly from a tumour.

Only for lung cancer, where it is already mandated and recommended by guidelines. For most other cancers it remains under research.

Yes. Tracking hepatitis B virus DNA levels in the blood shows whether a patient is responding to treatment, since chronic hepatitis B infection is itself a cause of liver cancer.