AFFINERGY, LLC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 300

Description

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy is the standard technique for diagnosis and staging of suspicious pancreatic lesions Unfortunately blood and other unwanted debris are frequently present in these fine needle aspirates thus diluting and obscuring cells of interest Subsequent slide preparations from such aspirates are suboptimal leading to non diagnostic outcomes that necessitate repeat FNA biopsies and or additional procedures adding to both time and cost If the repeat testing remains inconclusive then the patients are guided towards surgical biopsies for diagnostic confirmation However surgery is not only expensive and morbid but may be contraindicated in most patients with advanced disease In such inoperable patients non surgical FNA samples are often the only cytological specimens available to the clinicians for diagnosis Hence there is a considerable need to develop a product that can improve the consistency and quality of FNA slide preparations as well as facilitate ancillary molecular testing on the slides To this end Affinergy has identified multiple high affinity peptides that specifically bind to pancreatic cells but not to red and white blood cells In this application we propose to develop peptide coated glass slides which will provide a simple and rapid method for preparing optimal pancreatic FNA slides for improved diagnostic outcomes At the conclusion of Phase I we expect to have established the feasibility of using our peptide modified slides for cytological analysis of pancreatic FNA specimens which can then be validated during Phase II utilizing clinical samples PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Diagnostic confirmation of pancreatic carcinomas is often challenging in pancreatic fine needle aspirates contaminated with blood and other debris In this proposal we will develop a novel method of improving visualization of slide preparations by specifically capturing diagnostic cells while removing obscuring contaminants