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Steve Cleveland: Tumor-Educated Platelets as a Platform for Early Cancer Detection

Steve Cleveland/LinkedIn

Apr 1, 2026, 14:58

Steve Cleveland: Tumor-Educated Platelets as a Platform for Early Cancer Detection

Steve Cleveland, Program Director and Faculty Lecturer at Saint Paul College-A Community and Technical College, CLIA Laboratory Director at Osceola Medical Center, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Tumor-Educated Platelets (TEPs) could be a game-changer in early cancer detection, and right now, I’m putting an ‘old’ instrument back to work to help prove it.

We know that tumors ‘educate’ circulating platelets by transferring tumor-specific RNA and biomarkers.

Emerging research shows that TEP profiling can detect multiple cancers at early stages with impressive accuracy, often before traditional imaging detects them.

The bottleneck? Research labs often lack budget for new equipment.

That’s why I’m currently in the process of validating a decommissioned clinical chemistry analyzer in our lab to support TEP research.

By repurposing existing instrumentation, running Six Sigma–style validation protocols, and building reliable RNA extraction and profiling workflows, we’re turning surplus lab assets into active contributors for translational cancer studies.

This approach could let more medical laboratories participate in liquid biopsy research without massive capital investment, simply by reallocating and validating the tools we already have.

Fellow lab leaders and researchers:

Have you ever repurposed decommissioned instruments for research or special projects?

I’d love to hear what’s worked (or what challenges you ran into) in your setting.”

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