"Fetal cells circulate in maternal blood and have a great diagnostic potential". This is a fact known to scientists for many decades. However, the difficulty in isolating fetal cells, due to their rarity and to the absence of fetal cell specific markers, has kept their diagnostic potential at bay. The goal of FCMB is to develop a method to isolate rare fetal cells from maternal blood, which can be used for subsequent genetic analyses.

Current invasive procedures, such as Chorionic Villi Sampling (CVS) and Amniocentesis, carry a certain risk of abortion. The scientists at FCMB aim to develop an alternative no-risk method which will provide pregnant women with accurate genetic information of their unborn child.

Fetal diagnostics based on a blood sample from the mother bear no risk, neither for the mother nor for the child. It provides pregnant women with information very much similar to what is obtained by CVS or amniocentesis, but without the risk of inducing an unintended abortion.

Founding of the company FCMB

The founders of 'Fetal Cell in Maternal Blood' (FCMB) hold more than 20 years of research experience in the field of identifying fetal cells in maternal blood, originally in collaboration with Professor John Philip, who was at that time head of the Prenatal Research Unit at Rigshospital in Copenhagen until his retirement in 2004. In 2005 FCMB ApS was formally launched when the pre seed venture fond 'INCUBA Venture' and 'Oestjysk Innovation' recognized the great potential of the work done by its founders in prenatal diagnosis.

The project of FCMB

Based on results published by its founders , scientists at FCMB are looking for cell types, other than fetal erythrocytes, which are more suitable for non-invasive renatal iagnosis.

Using a proprietary preparation technology together with a cell type independent marker, the Y-chromosome, FCMB is able to reliably detect and collect fetal cells in blood samples from male pregnancies. It has been possible for the first time to isolate a fully preserved fetal cell containing nucleus and cytoplasm, which allows to develop binders towards distinct surface markers of those cells.

FCMB has now succeeded in generating cDNA libraries from those fetal cells and subsequent microarray analysis revealed a set of marker candidates expressed in fetal but not in maternal blood cells.

Example of a microarray analysis (Miltenyi Biotech): Scatter plot showing maternal vs fetal signals from two biological repeats, with 100 fetal cells in each analysis. The signals from two analyses are strikingly correlated.

Recently scientists at FCMB have been able to identify fetal cell specific markers which has opened prospects for gender-free identification of fetal cells in maternal blood.

Future Perspectives

The ability to successfully and consistently isolate fetal cells from maternal blood, and identify these cells with gender-independent markers has given FCMB a clear lead in developing a fetal cells selection system which will be the core of tomorrow’s prenatal diagnostic programs.

With such a method, all pregnant women can be offered a reliable no-risk genetic test of the fetus, enabling them to make an informed choice about their unborn child.

The method developed by FCMB facilitates a wider range of genetic tests other than testing for numerical chromosome aberrations such as Down syndrome.

Furthermore, this method has the potential to replace both the present non-invasive screening methods and the invasive diagnostic procedures by a new no- risk procedure.