The engineer from Tecnun Idoia Ochoa develops a method that advances the understanding of cancer and has applications in personalised medicine.

A study published in Nature Communications by Idoia Ochoa, an engineer from TecnunIdoia Ochoa, unveils a new method that financial aid to have a more complete view of cancer. Moss, the name of the method developed, improves the detection of mutations in the cancer genome.

The engineer from San Sebastian, Idoia Ochoa, who was awarded by the MIT technology magazine among the 35 most innovative young Europeans of 2019, stresses that "this early detection is critical for medicine, since making an early diagnosis and choosing a specific treatment can be given in many cases depending on these mutations." In this way, Moss can give more precision to personalized medicine," emphasizes the engineer from TecnunMoss, who has been working on project for nearly two years.

Part of the mutations detected by Moss are not detected by current methods, so Moss gives a more complete picture of a tumor. This more complete information, based on the set of existing mutations in the tumor, can be core topic when making an early diagnosis or choosing the most appropriate treatment. "The novelty of Moss comes from being able to analyze several tumor samples together," stresses Ochoa. One of the most direct applications of Moss can take place in liquid biopsies, such as in leukemias or multiple myelomas, since it is less expensive to sequence the tumor cells.

Ochoa says that publishing in the journal has been a great effort and a lot of work. Nature Communicationsbut it has been worth it because it is a prestigious journal that reaches many people and can open doors to future collaborations or international projects.

link to the paper published in Nature Communications: "Moss enables high sensitivity single-nucleotide variant calling from multiple bulk DNA tumor samples".