Colorectal Cancer EU Project “DIOPTRA” started: Improving colorectal cancer screening using novel early detection methods with support from BBMRI.at partner Med Uni Graz incl. Biobank Graz
The EU project DIOPTRA aims develop a non-invasive approach for early CRC screening and risk assessment has the potential to significantly improve CRC screening in medical practice and to expand the population’s screening participation. BBMRI.at representatives from Med Uni Graz (i.e. Biobank Graz and Division of Oncology) provide expertise, samples and data to the H2020 project.
Colorectal cancer is the second most deadly cancer. It still accounts for 10% of all tumours worldwide. Novel, non-invasive, cost-effective screening tests are needed to improve the screening early cancer detection..
The DIOPTRA consortium, consisting of 28 partners from 15 countries, intents to introduce an early screening and risk assessment solution that considers risk factors and protein biomarkers to identify high-risk citizens in need of colonoscopy. The developemnt of this non-invasive approach for early CRC screening and risk assessment has the potential to significantly improve CRC screening in medical practice and to expand the population’s screening participation.
For this, DIOPTRA wants to use a routine blood test accessible by all age groups to identify those individuals that would otherwise not qualify for screening according to current EU guidelines. DIOPTRA’s approach is to apply a dedicated biomarker discovery pipeline for investigating protein expression in CRC vs healthy blood/plasma serum samples. This shall be supported by artificial intelligence (AI), finally leading to a mobile app that offers healthy citizens the opportunity to monitor their CRC risk
