Cancer Detection Through Blood Test in the Works? Illumina Inc Starts Study with $100 Million

The world's biggest DNA sequencing company is pouring $100 million in investments towards cancer testing. If it achieves its goal, it could potentially impact cancer detection in a great way.

Illumina, along with biotech firm Arch Venture Partners and Bezos Expeditions, has formed a new startup company called Grail. Its main objective is to create a process that would make it possible to detect cancer with blood tests.

Market Watch reported that Grail will make use of Illumina's DNA sequencing technology to develop these tests. However, first, they will have to figure out how to go about this.

Time reported that there are possible expected hurdles to this venture and research as cancer cells are not easy to target in the body. The cells are actually part of the cancer patient's own tissues, which have developed abnormally.

Because of the cell's genetic makeup, many existing cancer treatments have invariably caused damage to the other organs of the patient's body. Tumors also tend to mutate, which makes detection in its early stages even harder. However, with Illumina's capacity, Grail hopes to focus on detection before the cancer mass is present by finding a way for the technology to distinguish between normal and abnormal body cells.

What Grail plans to do is to improve on a process called liquid biopsy, which many cancer researchers have long pursued. Experts have been hoping to develop liquid biopsy for early stages of cancer because, at the moment, the tests are only done for stage 3 or 4 cancer cases to chart the development of treatments.

However, since gene-mapping technology was created, its possibilities and potential are becoming more evident and useful to researchers. If Grail's revolutionary venture becomes a success, it is predicted that blood testings for cancer will become part of early screenings within the next five years, per CNBC.

"Early detection has exciting possibilities because it allows us to imagine getting cancers at the time at which they could still be taken out surgically," said Dr. Victor Velculescu via CNBC. Aside from this, cancer experts can also devise better therapies that will have higher survival rate among cancer patients.

"We hope today is a turning point in the war on cancer," said Illumina chief Jay Flatley via Market Watch. "By enabling the early detection of cancer in asymptomatic individuals through a simple blood screen, we aim to massively decrease cancer mortality by detecting the disease at a curable stage."