Canary Initiatives
Mission: To generate clinically approved and novel radiotracers to advance early detection and treatment of diseases, ultimately improving human health.
Second Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Facility Opens at 1701 Page Mill
Clinical Translation to SHC and affiliated sites
- cGMP manufacturing of novel radiopharmaceuticals to advance early detection and treatment of disease.
- Can provide >36 tracers under FDA-approved ANDA, INDs, or RDRC
Research Capabilities
- Support Stanford Faculty with access to facilities with equipment and know-how to support their preclinical research
Education and Training
- The CRF staff provides formal training in radiation safety, radiolabeling chemistry, cGMP practice, and quality control for human studies
To meet the challenge of developing innovative precision treatments will be fostering greater collaboration with researchers in Stanford’s School of Engineering. As a first step to bring this vision into reality, we are thrilled to have launched The Center for Interventional Radiology Innovation at Stanford (IRIS). IRIS provides clinicians in Interventional Radiology with a new infrastructure for developing innovative therapies in collaboration with Stanford Engineers via a design thinking process that accelerates translation to the clinic. Led by Avnesh Thakor, MD, PhD (Associate Professor, Radiology), IRIS already has projects underway in diabetes, stroke treatment, and pediatric stents.
To focus efforts and provide a centralized resource for developing diagnostic tests based on liquid biopsies, the Canary Center is initiating the Liquid Biopsy Center. Under the leadership of Diagnostic Sciences Laboratory Division member, Professor Utkan Demirci, this Center will bring together cancer researchers who work to understand the biology that signals an early disease state in cancer and engineers to create a device that can be used for detection, with a focus on liquid biopsies (blood, urine or interstitial fluid (ISF)).
Interstitial Fluid
Dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) occupies the space between cells in the skin and exchanges biomolecules with blood, cells, and lymph. Nearly all plasma analytes are present in ISF, with a small fraction of analytes exclusive to ISF, presumably from the skin microenvironment. These biomarkers position ISF as a promising minimally invasive diagnostic alternative to blood draws. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.13.641882v1
Urine
Noninvasive whole transcriptome measurements of human urine cfRNA and sediment RNA reflects signal from hard-to-biopsy tissues exhibiting low representation in blood plasma cfRNA liquid biopsy at cell type resolution. Vorperian, et. al. Clinical Chem., 70:11 (2014)
Exosomes
Circulating tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a promising source for identifying cancer biomarkers for early cancer detection. The Demicri lab has designed a size-based EV isolation tool called ExoTIC (exosome total isolation chip), which is simple, easy-to-use, modular, and facilitates high-yield and high-purity EV isolation from biofluids.
Mucosal Fluids
Stanford Canary Center faculty have helped found Teal Health, an at-home self-collect cervical cancer screening to address the need that 1 in 4 US women are not up-to-date on their cervical cancer screening.
Ultrasound is a versatile technology with many applications including treating neurological diseases and cancer. Led by Professor Kim Butts-Pauly, the Center for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Ultrasound is the newest Canary initiative that will bring together researchers in this cross-cutting discipline in projects funded by seed grants with the goal of establishing a Biomedical technology Research Center.