Electric-Field Molecular Fingerprinting to Probe Cancer
Human biofluids serve as indicators of various physiological states, and recent advances in molecular profiling technologies hold great potential for enhancing clinical diagnostics. Leveraging recent developments in laser-based electric-field molecular fingerprinting, we assess its potential for <i>in vitro</i> diagnostics. In a proof-of-concept clinical study involving 2533 participants, we conducted randomized measurement campaigns to spectroscopically profile bulk venous blood plasma across lung, prostate, breast, and bladder cancer. Employing machine learning, we detected infrared signatures specific to therapy-naïve cancer states, distinguishing them from matched control individuals with a cross-validation ROC AUC of 0.88 for lung cancer and values ranging from 0.68 to 0.69 for the other three cancer entities. In an independent held-out test data set, designed to reflect different experimental conditions from those used during model training, we achieved a lung cancer detection ROC AUC of 0.81. Our study demonstrates that electric-field molecular fingerprinting is a robust technological framework broadly applicable to disease phenotyping under real-world conditions.
Authors
- Kosmas V. Kepesidis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6391-7743)
- Michael Chaloupka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8814-6412)
- Michael K. Trubetskov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1490-0264)
- Nadia Harbeck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9744-7372)
- Mihaela Žigman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8306-1922)
- Alexander Weigel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0344-6935)
- Frank Fleischmann
- Ferenc Krausz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6525-9449)
- Marinus Huber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5309-4475)
- Abdallah M. Azzeer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8334-9256)
- Christian Georg Stief (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3291-9460)
- Liudmila Voronina (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6766-079X)
- Niels Reinmuth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7369-4512)
- Jürgen Behr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9151-4829)
- Tarek Eissa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8932-2553)
- Philip Jacob (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1136-1787)
- Ioachim Pupeza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8422-667X)
- Thomas Kolben
- Nico Feiler
- Maximilian F. Reiser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1098-8190)
- Wolfgang Schweinberger
- Lea Gigou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8452-0346)
- Patrik Karandušovský
- Jacqueline Aschauer
Institutions
- Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (DE)
- King Saud University (SA)
- Technologies pour la Santé (FR)
- Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (DE)
- Asklepios Fachkliniken München-Gauting (DE)
- German Center for Lung Research (DE)
- Molecular Fingerprint (Sweden) (SE)
- Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory (CA)
- Digital Research Alliance of Canada
- Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (IN)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ACS Central Science
- Published
- 2025-04-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.4c02164
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Spectroscopy Techniques in Biomedical and Chemical Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 9.80
Funders
- King Saud University