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The word biopsy is usually associated with the idea of a surgical procedure intended to remove a piece of tissue suspected of being diseased or malignant, and in fact, that\\u2019s usually what it is. A research team at Queensland University of Technology in Australia is changing this with the development of liquid biopsies\\u2014a non-invasive method that analyzes blood and\\xa0saliva\\xa0for the early detection of cancer, cancer staging, and prediction of how a patient will respond to treatment.

In addition to being more cost-effective and less invasive for the patient, this approach also eliminates the possibility of a false negative, or the retrieval of a sample of tissue that contains no cancer cells, despite it having been taken from a cancerous tumor.

Chamindie Punyadeera joins the podcast today to discuss the ins and outs of the research and development she\\u2019s contributing to, and explains how and why the liquid biopsy approach will pave the way for better, and more personalized medicine in the near future.

Tune in for all the details, and discover:

• Why the heterogeneity of tumors makes tissue-based biopsies less accurate than liquid biopsies
• What\\xa0cell-free DNA\\xa0is, where it\\u2019s found, and how it can provide valuable information for cancer patients
• How biomarkers in saliva may be used to differentiate between patients at high risk of heart failure (such as those suffering from\\xa0type 2 diabetes\\xa0or\\xa0obesity)