Detecting and monitoring cancer through highly sensitive molecular and cellular biomarkers that enable early detection, risk stratification, and precise monitoring of treatment response.
Biomarkers play a central role in modern oncology by enabling improved diagnosis, prognostic assessment, and therapy monitoring. In hematological malignancies, the quantification of minimal residual disease (MRD) has become an essential tool for evaluating treatment response and guiding therapy decisions. Highly sensitive flow cytometric and molecular genetic approaches allow the detection of very small numbers of remaining tumor cells after therapy, providing important information about relapse risk and disease progression.
At UCCSH, researchers develop and apply advanced diagnostic methods to detect and quantify MRD with high sensitivity and specificity. In particular, the Section for Hematological Special Diagnostics at the Department of Internal Medicine II in Kiel has established and validated standardized MRD detection methods within international collaborative networks. Innovative high-throughput technologies such as amplicon-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) further improve the sensitivity of these analyses and enable comprehensive molecular monitoring.
Beyond hematological malignancies, biomarker research at UCCSH also focuses on liquid biopsy approaches for solid tumors. Tumor-derived nucleic acids circulating in the blood can be detected and quantified to monitor tumor burden, treatment response, and emerging therapy resistance. These approaches enable dynamic molecular characterization of tumors and support the development of individualized treatment strategies.