Overview of Fragle. Credit score: Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01370-3
Scientists from the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) have developed a brand new synthetic intelligence (AI)-based technique known as “Fragle” that makes monitoring most cancers simpler and quicker utilizing blood checks.
Requiring solely a small blood pattern, this technique analyzes the dimensions of DNA fragments within the blood to disclose distinct patterns that differentiate most cancers DNA from wholesome DNA, serving to medical doctors observe most cancers remedy response extra precisely and regularly. The analysis was printed in Nature Biomedical Engineering in March 2025.
Present strategies for measuring most cancers DNA within the blood, also referred to as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), typically require advanced and costly DNA sequencing to display for widespread most cancers mutations. Nevertheless, as a result of most cancers mutations range between sufferers, check outcomes might be inconsistent, making it tough for medical doctors to trace most cancers remedy response with blood checks successfully.
Fragle makes use of AI to research the dimensions of DNA fragments within the blood. Most cancers DNA tends to exhibit completely different dimension patterns in comparison with wholesome DNA, and the Fragle AI-model can establish these variations utilizing very small quantities of DNA. Because of this, the tactic permits for quicker and extra inexpensive most cancers monitoring.
It has additionally demonstrated excessive reliability, delivering correct outcomes throughout blood samples from a whole lot of most cancers sufferers and distinct most cancers varieties. Moreover, the tactic is flexible and appropriate with most DNA profiling strategies generally utilized in hospitals or provided by industrial suppliers.
Key advantages of Fragle:
Quicker and cheaper: Fragle presents a quicker and doubtlessly extra inexpensive strategy to monitor most cancers via blood checks, requiring solely a small quantity of DNA. Standard industrial checks can price over SGD $1000, whereas the estimated price of Fragle is lower than SGD $50.
Versatile: Fragle works with broadly used DNA profiling strategies in hospitals and industrial labs, permitting for simple and quick adoption into present workflows.
Detects early indicators of relapse: Fragle can establish tiny traces of most cancers left after surgical procedure and remedy (often known as minimal residual illness, or MRD), serving to medical doctors detect potential relapse early.
“Just as scientists tracked COVID-19 outbreaks by detecting viral particles in wastewater, Fragle analyzes DNA fragments in blood to monitor cancer treatment response and detect relapse early,” explains Dr. Anders Skanderup, Senior Principal Scientist at A*STAR GIS Laboratory of Computational Most cancers Genomics, and the lead creator of this analysis.
“While existing methods have their strengths, they are often complex and expensive. We wanted to develop a simpler, more affordable and accessible approach—one that could support accurate monitoring without adding burden to clinical workflows. “
The crew can be wanting into bettering Fragle’s sensitivity to detect even decrease ranges of most cancers DNA, which is crucial for earlier detection of illness relapse in most cancers sufferers. To translate these findings, the crew can be collaborating with the Nationwide Most cancers Heart Singapore (NCCS) to establish scientific alternatives and functions. Transferring forward, the crew plans to discover how Fragle might be carried out in native hospitals to enhance most cancers affected person care.
Affiliate Professor Daniel Tan, Senior Guide, Division of Medical Oncology, Nationwide Most cancers Heart Singapore and co-author of the research, “We are excited to initiate studies on how methods such as Fragle can detect disease relapse earlier in local lung cancer patients.”
In an ongoing research of greater than 100 scientific trial sufferers, the GIS-NCCS crew is utilizing Fragle to observe ctDNA ranges each two months throughout remedy, with the purpose of catching indicators of relapse earlier than they seem on routine scans. The crew can be finding out whether or not early adjustments in ctDNA can establish which sufferers are more likely to have a positive or poor response to the remedy. The purpose of the research is to evaluate the worth of incorporating ctDNA checks in routine monitoring of most cancers sufferers throughout remedy.
Dr. Wan Yue, Government Director at A*STAR GIS, “We are very excited about the potential Fragle brings, to help our health care professionals detect and track cancer more accurately and monitor treatments more effectively, leading to better cancer care for patients. It is our hope that our genomic research can be translated to benefit population health not only in Singapore, but worldwide.”
Extra info:
Guanhua Zhu et al, A deep-learning mannequin for quantifying circulating tumour DNA from the density distribution of DNA-fragment lengths, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01370-3
Supplied by
Company for Science, Know-how and Analysis (A*STAR), Singapore
Quotation:
AI device analyzes blood DNA fragments for quicker, inexpensive most cancers monitoring (2025, June 13)
retrieved 14 June 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-06-ai-tool-blood-dna-fragments.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any honest dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for info functions solely.
