COLOGNE, Germany–As part of a comprehensive R&D effort to develop an analytic tool to assist in accurately identifying leukemia stem cells, Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum is supporting the StemSpec R&D project at the University of Toronto with a TURBOVAC SL turbomolecular vacuum pump and a fore vacuum pump, and advising researchers about the use of the pumps.

With mounting evidence that many types of cancer, including leukemia, are stem-cell diseases where growth of a cancer tumor is sustained by cancer stem cells (CSCs), research efforts are focusing on the development of a tool to precisely identify the specific proteins and cell antigens that characterize CSCs. All cells contain many thousands of proteins, and the combination of proteins defines the biological properties of that cell. As a result, it is reasonable to expect that certain cells, like a CSC, have distinctive protein “marker profiles” that distinguish them from the other cells.

However, CSCs comprise far less than one percent of the cells in a tumor – about one per million – and they are difficult to isolate by conventional tests. This is why current cancer treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy may kill the bulk of the cells in a tumor and trigger a remission in the progress of the disease, but cancer stem cells largely resist these treatments, allowing the tumor to regenerate – clinical relapse.

A tool for individual cell analysis to address the significant challenge of identifying these cancer stem cells which, in turn, can lead to more effective therapies is now being developed and tested at the University of Toronto. Based on the concept of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS), this tool simultaneously measures a very high number (>20) of elemental tags attached to antibodies that interact with cell proteins and DNA via specific immuno-reactions. The presence and intensity of specific response signals can indicate the presence of markers on that cell and identify the specific cell type (i.e., whether it is a CSC or not).

This newly developed ICP-MS instrument uses a vacuum environment to carry out an extremely rapid and accurate analysis of the CSCs in a mass of cells by exploiting these unique cellular properties. As a leading supplier of vacuum components and solutions, Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum is a sponsor of the university’s development efforts by supplying a new TURBOVAC SL turbomolecular vacuum pump and a fore vacuum pump,and advising the project team on the pumps. The project is funded by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, DVS Sciences Inc. and others.

The StemSpec project is developing tools both to identify rare cancer stem cells and to examine the cancer pathways within leukemia stem cells. The project research teams also intend to further explore the nature of cancer stem cells, including the uniquegenes that are enabled or disabled in CSCs, the pathways that determine their biological properties, and the factors present on the surface of and inside these cells.

Ultimately, based on a more thorough understanding of CSCs that will result from this project, future disease therapies promise to be much less harmful to normal tissues and more effective in attacking the root of the cancer.