Collaboration propels OCRF-7: a rapid early detection approach for ovarian cancer.

The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) is delighted to share the advancement of a promising early detection project led by Associate Professor Carlos Salomon Gallo at The University of Queensland. 

Named after the OCRF, in recognition of the OCRF’s initial funding, the OCRF-7 algorithm is at the centre of the Associate Professor Salomon Gallo’s early detection project, which will now collaborate with Australia-based partner, INOVIQ, to further validate the OCRF-7 algorithm.  

Associate Professor Salomon Gallo seeks to develop a world-first exosome-based ovarian cancer screening test. Exosomes are small particles released by cells that convey important information to parent cells, and therefore can hold information important to the early detection of ovarian cancer.

In an independent 500-sample study, Associate Professor Salomon Gallo showed that the OCRF-7 algorithm of multiple biomarkers achieves over 90% accuracy in detecting ovarian cancer in stages 1 and 2.

A sign of the project’s promise and acknowledging the urgent need for an early detection test, INOVIQ has committed to providing its innovative EXO-NET technology in-kind. Alongside the OCRF-7 algorithm, EXO-NET will allow quick, accurate and scalable exosome isolation in thousands of blood samples.

This commitment allows two next phases of the project to unfold. Firstly, the team will validate the use of EXO-NET over twelve weeks. Then, if successful, EXO-NET will be used in the next stage of Associate Professor Salomon Gallo’s early detection project that is now being funded by the Federal Government’s Medical Research Future Fund. He will seek to clinically validate the OCRF-7 algorithm over thousands of samples that were collected from the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening.

Associate Professor Carlos Salomon Gallo said: “The use of a scalable exosome isolation tool such as INOVIQ’s EXO-NET product is critical to enable the commercialisation of routine exosome-based tests that can be used in pathology laboratories worldwide.”

The OCRF are thrilled with the progress that Associate Professor Salomon Gallo is making.

CEO Lucinda Nolan said, “The OCRF plays a crucial role in identifying and funding these promising projects in the early stages. Our committed supporters recognise that kick-starting meaningful research, like Carlos’early detection project, will not only increase our knowledge of the disease, but hopefully produce life-saving solutions.