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Strand Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has been granted an Indian patent for its integrated platform that enables early cancer detection from a simple blood test using cell-free DNA (cfDNA) analysis, the company said in a press release on Tuesday.
The patented platform combines high-quality genome sequencing, rigorous quality control, biologically informed methylation and fragmentomic feature extraction, and machine learning to detect cancer and predict its tissue-of-origin from a blood sample. A key innovation highlighted in the patent is the ability to capture widespread methylation pattern changes across the genome with minimal loss or failure. Such methylation changes are a hallmark of cancer, and reliably detecting them is critical for sensitive early-stage diagnosis. More than 1.5 million new cancer cases are estimated to occur annually, and unfortunately a large number of patients are still diagnosed at advanced stages, when treatment options are limited and outcomes are significantly poorer. Early detection has the potential to shift diagnoses to earlier stages. Current guideline-recommended screening covers only a small fraction of cancers and is not easy to scale. With decreasing costs of sequencing, the patented platform can potentially enable early detection at scale without expanding local infrastructure. "Early detection is an increasingly relevant topic as cancer is becoming one of India's greatest public health challenges," said Ramesh Hariharan, CEO, Strand Life Sciences. "This patent reflects our commitment to developing scientifically rigorous, AI-enabled liquid biopsy technologies that can help detect cancer earlier from a simple blood sample. We believe this innovation represents an important step towards making precision cancer screening more accurate, scalable, and accessible." The granted patent adds to Strand's intellectual property portfolio in liquid biopsy and reinforces the company's strategy of building integrated, AI-enabled molecular approaches for early cancer detection and precision oncology. The company said Strand Life Sciences has been working on genomics, bioinformatics and clinical diagnostics solutions. With this patent, it aims to push forward research and eventual deployment of blood-based screening tools that can complement existing cancer screening programs. The development comes as both government and private players in India look to invest in affordable, scalable diagnostics to tackle the growing cancer burden. (ANI)
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