Alison Wing Shan Luk

Ms. Alison Wing Shan Luk


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

11Years (2016-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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Journal Article
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YMYafeng Ma
Yafeng Ma
ALAlison Wing Shan Luk
Alison Wing Shan Luk
FYFrancis P. Young
Francis P. Young
DLDavid Lynch
David Lynch
WCWei Chua
Wei Chua
Therese BeckerTherese Becker
Therese Becker
Androgen receptor splice variant V7 (AR-V7) was recently identified as a valuable predictive biomarker in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. Here, we report a new, sensitive and accurate screen for AR-V7 mRNA expression directly from circulating tumor cells (CTCs): We combined EpCAM-based immunomagnetic CTC isolation using the IsoFlux microfluidic platform with droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) to analyze total AR and AR-V7 expression from prostate cancer patients CTCs. We demonstrate that AR-V7 is reliably detectable in enriched CTC samples with as little as five CTCs, even considering tumor heterogeneity, and confirm detection of AR-V7 in CTC samples from advanced prostate cancer (PCa) patients with AR-V7 detection limited to castrate resistant disease status in our sample set. Sensitive molecular analyses of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) or circulating tumor nucleic acids present exciting strategies to detect biomarkers, such as AR-V7 from non-invasive blood samples, so-called blood biopsies.