PhD Defence Huong Tran

Ovarian cancer is difficult to diagnose in a timely manner since the disease doesn’t cause any specific symptoms. As a result the disease is often diagnosed in a late stage, lowering the patients’ chances of survival. Since ovarian cancer can be successfully treated when detected early, there is a clear need for screening methods that detect ovarian cancer in an early stage. Patients with ovarian cancer show increased blood levels of certain proteins, which opens up the possibility to screen for ovarian cancer using a simple blood test. However, to make this possible we need materials that can capture the relevant proteins from the sample.

The aim of this PhD research was to design and modify nanobodies, small antibody fragments, that bind 3 proteins associated with ovarian cancer. The best performing nanobodies were selected and subsequently modified. The modifications made allowed the nanobodies to be used in commonly applied blood assays.

Confirm your attendance via e-mail (huong.tran@uhasselt.be)