A team from the University of Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center is working to find early markers for ovarian cancer.

Backed by a $1.2 million Department of Defense grant, a team led by Tianfu Wu, associate professor of biomedical engineering at UH, is studying autoantibodies that target a tumor suppressor gene that's often mutated in cancers and serves as an early marker of ovarian cancer development.

According to UH, the majority of women with ovarian cancer (70 percent and 75 percent) are diagnosed once the cancer has already spread, with the chances of survival below 32 percent. Computational models estimate that detecting ovarian cancer earlier could reduce mortality by 10 percent to 30 percent.

Doctors generally screen for ovarian cancer by measuring the rising amount of a protein known as Cancer Antigen 125 (CA125). However, additional biomarkers are needed to improve sensitivity and to detect cancer cases that are missed by CA125 testing.

“Advancing early detection methodologies is essential to improving patient prognosis and survival outcomes,” Wu said in a news release. “The technological challenges in the early detection of ovarian cancer are multifaceted, primarily due to limited sensitivity of currently available biomarkers and the absence of highly accurate biomarkers that can detect the disease well before clinical diagnosis.”

Wu’s team developed a test that detects thousands of immune reactions simultaneously by searching for immune complexes in an effort to identify new autoantibodies. They found more than 100 significantly upregulated immune complexes in ovarian cancer patients compared to healthy patients.

The team will test 10 to 20 of the biomarker candidates to assess their performance in the early detection of ovarian cancer. They will use machine learning modeling to develop computer algorithms for data analysis and disease predictions as well.

Dr. Robert C. Bast at MD Anderson Cancer Center has pioneered the practice of early detection of ovarian cancer, and is Wu’s partner on a team. Ying Lin, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at UH, and Dr. Zhen Lu from at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center are also working on the project.