MULTI-C · Multiomic DNA Chip Technology for Blood Cancer Profiling

Blood cancers remain challenging to diagnose and monitor due to the standard of care requirement for bone marrow biopsies and limitations in current biomarker detection technologies. DNA modifications, specifically 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC)—are powerful epigenetic regulators in blood cancer development, providing valuable diagnostic and prognostic information. Despite their clinical importance, current technologies fail to simultaneously detect both 5mC and 5hmC with precision and efficiency, creating a significant barrier to clinical implementation of these epigenetic marks.This proposal introduces an innovative microarray platform that overcomes these limitations by enabling simultaneous profiling of both 5mC and 5hmC modifications from blood samples within a single, cost-effective assay. Unlike current methods that struggle with modification differentiation, sample degradation, and complex workflows, our technology offers a streamlined approach that preserves sample integrity while delivering superior diagnostic accuracy. Our innovation lies in the ability to distinguish different cytosine modifications (MULTI-C), which provides significantly enhanced diagnostic accuracy compared to single-marker approaches. The platform's remarkable sensitivity allows detection from minimal DNA inputs, making it ideally suited for minimally-invasive liquid biopsy applications—a critical advancement for patient monitoring and precision medicine in hematological malignancies. This research has the potential to transform how blood cancers are diagnosed, monitored, and treated by addressing a fundamental technological gap in epigenetic profiling and reducing the need for bone marrow biopsies.