KaryoDrop – Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 based on circulating trophoblastic cells

Down syndrome or trisomy 21 is one of the most common birth defect, caused by a triplicated chromosome 21. To date, amniocentesis is the only 100% reliable test to detect fetal chromosomal abnormalities, but it presents safety concerns.

The ambition of this project is to propose a reliable noninvasive prenatal diagnostic based on rare fetal circulating cells: we will capture these cells based on their size from the mother’s blood, using a validated technology (ISET®), and then encapsulate these cells with one cell per droplet, at most, using droplet-based microfluidics.