Circulating Tumor Cells Get "Sucked Up" By Malaria Protein

Scientists in Copenhagen have developed a new tool for diagnosing and monitoring a wide variety of cancers, which uses a malaria protein known rVAR2 to grab hold of and remove circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples.The researchers, headed by Mette Ø. Agerbæk, Ph.D., and Ali Salanti, Ph.D., at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Immunology and Mcirobiology, found that using the bead-bound malaria protein as a CTC capture method was highly specific for cancer