Empowered Patient Podcast

Mark McDonough, the CEO of ChromaCode, is leveraging high-definition PCR testing to overcome the limitations of conventional PCR to identify biomarkers of infectious diseases and cancer. While gene sequencing can provide valuable information, it requires more tissue, is expensive, and requires at least a week for analysis. Using HDPCR, ChromaCode has developed a lung cancer assay that looks at nine genes and 15 biomarkers, requiring less tissue, performed at a lower cost, and provides results quickly. This approach, built on a cloud-supported multiplexing platform, provides flexibility to explore other areas in oncology and transplants, looking at multiple targets per sample. Mark explains, "With PCR today, assays look at particular biomarkers on a gene-by-gene basis. So those can be effective in lung cancer, for example, if you know you're just looking for EGFR as a biomarker or if you're looking at KRAS or ALK, a different mutation. But the problem is it's not very comprehensive, and you need a lot of tissu