Researchers at Peking University have developed a new platform called "cf-EpiTracing" that can detect and trace diseases using just a single drop of blood, according to a March 16 announcement. The research was led by Professor He Aibin from the College of Future Technology and Professor Jing Hongmei from the Department of Hematology at PKU Third Hospital, with findings published in Nature on March 4.
The new technology addresses limitations in current liquid biopsy methods, which often cannot determine the origin of disease signals in blood samples. Cf-EpiTracing captures detailed epigenetic fingerprints from small amounts of plasma, allowing it to identify specific tissues involved in disease, distinguish between lymphoma subtypes, and predict patient outcomes more accurately than existing clinical tests. This could enable earlier and more precise non-invasive diagnoses.
In studies focused on colorectal cancer screening and early diagnosis, cf-EpiTracing achieved an accuracy rate of up to 97.6% in training samples and maintained robustness with a 92.2% accuracy rate in independent validation groups. The platform integrates multimodal epigenomic features from cell-free chromatin and uses machine learning algorithms to reach these results.
The technology also revealed that patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma show stronger signals of CD34-positive cells in their plasma. This may indicate bone marrow involvement and greater disease aggressiveness, offering new insights for classifying lymphoma subtypes and developing treatment strategies.
Looking ahead, researchers plan to combine cf-EpiTracing with other cell-free analysis methods such as DNA methylation profiling, mutation detection, and chromatin topology studies. They say this multi-omic approach could bring unprecedented precision to diagnosing complex diseases and monitoring cellular changes during treatment across large patient groups.
