🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 I’m thrilled and proud to share that our latest work has just been published in @ScienceMagazine! 🎉 🧽 📖 Read our paper here: https://t.co/CvYSNq2nHj 🎬 Watch a summary: https://t.co/qvuZR3reTj 🧵 Or keep reading for the key points! 🔑 1/19

Had a great time at #ISEH2025 in Kumamoto 🇯🇵! Thrilled to share my platelet–DNA work in both the pre-meeting workshop (🏆 Best Talk Award!) and the main meeting. Great science, discussions… and I even got to see Mount Fuji !! 🗻✨ #cfDNA #Platelets #ISEH2025 #LiquidBiopsy

Huge thanks to @BiotechTV for sharing our research! @chloeckirk you’ve done such a brilliant job explaining our paper🩸🧽🧬

Thanks for sharing @HemostasisToday ! 🩸🧽

Thanks for sharing @HemostasisToday!!! 🧬🧽🩸

Thank you @LabWaggoner for highlighting our research! 🧽🩸

Thank you @veraghali for highlighting our research!! 🧽

Thanks for sharing @nvpatkar !!🩸🧬

Thank you for highlighting our research Adrian Tsui and Dennis Lo! 🧽 The ins and outs of circulating DNA | Science

Thrilled that our paper is finally in press @ScienceMagazine!! *Platelets sequester cell free DNA, including free fetal and tumour-derived DNA* Tweetorial from @l_cmurphy below. Check out the news feature https://t.co/r1bXqfpPSU and terrific editorial from Dennis Lo

⭐️Above all, thanks to the patients who contributed samples and inspired this work!⭐️ 19/19

We are incredibly grateful for fantastic support from institutions and funders, critical to enabling this work: @CR_UK, @Ludwig_Cancer, @OxfordCancer, @MRC_WIMM, @RDMOxford and @ExeterCollegeOx 🌍 18/19

Thank you to our reviewers for dedicating their time and energy to thoughtfully improving the manuscript, and to @sarah_h_ross and @ScienceMagazine for a smooth editorial process.📚 17/19

We are also very grateful to those who came on board with the idea especially Eric O’Neil @hipp_o_neill, Ian Hitchcock @hitchcock_lab, Michael Desborough and Manu Vatish @Ox_wrh who helped us brainstorm and collect samples. 🧠 16/19

This project was a true team effort and would not have been possible without so many incredible colleagues: @InchauspeJeanne, Giampiero Valenzano, Chris Gregory, Pamella Holland @EdinUni_IRR, @_Paul_Rees and Benjamin Schuster-Böckler @dagams 🤝 15/19

With huge thanks to my PhD supervisors for their endless enthusiasm and support: Beth Psaila @beth_psaila, Simon Leedham @leedham_simon and Adam Mead @AdamMead_Oxford ✨14/19

So much cool biology to follow up…✉️ Take home message: a substantial % of cfDNA is contained within platelets. This info is being missed by current protocols that extract cfDNA from platelet-depleted plasma! 🗓️13/19

Why do plts do this?! Maybe to help clear cfDNA from plasma, preventing non-specific immune activation. We showed that cfDNA is higher in low plt counts. After gobbling up DNA fragments, do plts then deploy it targeting immune activation to where it is needed? 🍽️🤔 12/19

In patients, we showed cancer-derived DNA in both advanced and early-stage cancer. Remarkably, we even detected mutant BRAF alleles in people with “pre-cancer”–small colon polyps! Polyps increase CRC risk and are hard to detect; plt DNA may be an early molecular flag! 🚩11/19

But does this happen in vivo? With @leedham_simon and @hipp_o_neill, we showed plts contain cancer mutations in colorectal and pancreatic models. In many cases, there was more tumor DNA in plts than plasma, indicating that including plt DNA would add value to screening! 🐁 10/19

How do they do this? Plts have a unique ‘sponge-like’ structure with lots of surface-connected channels 🧽. We showed they take up DNA-loaded vesicles and ‘membrane free’ DNA fragments by different mechanisms. Once inside, DNA is protected from nuclease degradation! ✂️ 9/19