Key points from article :
Team led by Asst. Prof. Cheow Lih Feng has developed a novel method to measure absolute telomere length.
Single Telomere Absolute-length Rapid (STAR) assay can measure individual telomeres in less than three hours.
Telomere profiling method can process up to 48 samples from low amounts (<1 ng) of DNA.
Individual telomere molecules are distributed into thousands of nanolitre chambers in a microfluidic chip.
Real-time PCR of single telomere molecules is performed across the chambers in a massively parallel manner.
Accurate telomere profiling will allow for precision therapy and targeted treatments.
Patients who have cancers activated by the Alternative Lengthening of Telomere (ALT) pathway linked to longer than average telomere length and a high percentage of critically short telomeres.
Conventional methods for telomere measurements are often time-consuming and require skilled operators.
Research by NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology (iHealthtech) published in the journal Science Advances.
