National Health Research Institutes

Academia Sinica

National Taiwan University

Cheng-Wen Wu

Pan-Chyr Yang

Konan Peck

Jeremy J W Chen

Jin-Yuan Shih

Ting-Chao Chou

Tsann-Long Su

Tse-Ming Hong

Reen Wu

Shuenn-Chen Yang

Fu Sheng Chang

Yuh-Pyng Sher

Yi-Wen Chu

Felicia Y-h Wu

The present invention discloses a method for rapid assessment of lung cancer therapy efficacy in a few days instead of weeks by conventional imaging methods. This method can also be used to detect relapse of the cancer and to improve the current TNM cancer staging method for more accurate prognosis. The rapid assessment of therapy efficacy is based on detecting circulating cancer cells in body fluid with high positive detection rate. The high positive detection rate is achieved by using qPCR amplification of multiple marker genes identified by in silico search of DNA sequence database. This invention also discloses a scoring method to calculate the cancer cell load based on qPCR results to correlate the amount of circulating cancer cells in lung cancer patients and predict the treatment outcomes.

Rapid efficacy assessment method for lung cancer therapy

This invention is based on the discovery of an association of Collapsin Response Mediator Protein-1 (CRMP-1) with tumor metastasis. The level of CRMP-1 protein or mRNA can be used as an indicator of cellular invasiveness and of a test compound's ability to alter cellular invasiveness. The level of CRMP-1 protein can also be altered, e.g., to reduce invasiveness.

Collapsin response mediator protein-1

The invention relates to a method of detecting a differentially expressed gene in a first sample of nucleic acids representing a first population of RNA transcripts and a second sample of nucleic acids representing a second population of RNA transcripts. The nucleic acids in the samples are labled with a member of specific binding pair, and the labeled nucleic acids in each sample are then hybridized to an excess of copies of a gene-specific sequence. The hybridized nucleic acids in each sample are further labeled by binding a second member of the specific binding pair to the first member, in which the second member has an activity to convert a chromogenic substrate into a chromogen. As a result of contacting the second member with the chromogenic substrate, the chromogenic substrate is converted into the chromogen. A difference in the amounts of chromogen produced from assaying the two samples indicate that the gene-specific sequence is differentially expressed in the samples.

Methods for detecting differentially expressed genes

The invention provides a compound of the following formula: ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 is C.sub.1-6 alkyl; or phenyl;

Alkyl N-�3-(acridin-9-yl)amino-5-hydroxymethyl! phenylcarbamates

Growing community of inventors

Miaoli County, Taiwan

Cheng-Wen Wu