aiGENE is a US-based company developing a rapid, inexpensive, universal, pan-cancer screening test using DNA methylation technology licenced from The University of Queensland, Australia in 2020.
The company’s approach uses an electrode based meter that generates a digital readout based on the amount of cancer DNA in a person’s blood. The “aiElectrode” is selectively sensitive to the altered methylation pattern that is characteristic of cancer DNA.
The technology has potential for early cancer risk detection, early recurrence detection (bladder cancer, head and neck cancer, as well as other cancers) and therapy monitoring (e.g. pharma trials and informed patient management).
Innovation: Methylscape technology which uses gold sensors to determine if 3D nanostructures of cancer DNA are present in blood or biopsy tissue.
Indications: Cancers (bladder cancer, head and neck cancer, as well as other cancers).
Initially the company will focus on therapy monitoring. The company says that typically it takes three months for scans to show if a cancer is shrinking. The company’s approach aims to provide a true reading of cancer DNA from a simple blood test. Initially the company wants to help pharma companies conducting drug trials to know early if a drug is working. Clinical trial use is not FDA regulated.
Founded in 2019, the company is led by Dr Floyd Taub, who in 1984 founded Digene, the first company to develop and commercialise a nucleic acid (DNA) test to diagnose or screen for any cancer.
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