Technologies for circulating tumour DNA preparation

A single drop of blood contains tumour DNA fragments so scarce that standard lab techniques routinely miss them. Current methods to capture and analyse this circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) suffer from low yields and poor sensitivity, making it difficult to reliably detect cancer mutations and methylation patterns when they are present at very low abundance. This forces clinicians to rely on invasive surgical biopsies or expensive scans instead. The project aims to develop automated, decentralised tools that physically enrich ctDNA from blood samples before analysis, boosting the signal from the tumour’s genetic material without requiring complex central-lab infrastructure. If successful, the technology could shift cancer diagnostics from hospital-based biopsies to routine blood tests in local clinics. Patients would avoid the pain, cost, and recovery time of surgical tissue sampling, while clinicians would gain a more practical way to monitor how tumours respond to treatment over time. The work is applied and engineering-focused—it tackles a specific bottleneck in sample preparation rather than exploring fundamental biology. The payoff is a simpler, cheaper path to liquid biopsy that could make precision oncology accessible beyond specialist centres.