Evaluation of See.d as an Automated Blood Sample Preparator for Multiple Liquid Biopsy Applications

The goal of this study is the evaluation of a new instrument called See.d, to be used in conjunction with its accessories, Smart Bio Surface (SBS) slides, for preparation of cytological samples (seeded on SBS slides) and plasma from fresh whole blood (within 4-6 hours from collection). Blood samples collected from healthy volunteers will be spiked-in with reference DNA and mock-CTC to mimic a patient sample in order to evaluate the instrument performance through the analysis of several parameters. Blood samples from Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) patients will be processed with See.d instrument installed in a clinical context to perform a preliminary analytical characterization of either cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC). For its feasibility nature, no formal statistics has been planned for this study.