A/Prof Arutha Kulasinghe – Advancing Precision Cancer Care Through Biomarker Discovery
Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe is a cancer researcher focused on improving how lung cancer is detected, monitored and treated through the discovery of blood-based biomarkers. His work sits at the intersection of cutting-edge proteomics and clinical care, with the aim of enabling earlier diagnosis and more personalised treatment decisions.
Through his research, Arutha is helping to move cancer care towards more precise, less invasive approaches that can improve outcomes for patients and reduce the burden on healthcare systems.
What is your area of research?
My research focuses on biomarker discovery in lung cancer. The main objective is to identify circulating protein biomarkers that can inform diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic response, particularly in the context of immunotherapy.
What originally drew you to this area of research?
This research path was driven by the clinical need for earlier cancer detection and more precise patient stratification.
Advances in proteomics technologies, combined with innovations in translational medicine, created an opportunity to interrogate the plasma proteome at an unprecedented depth. This allows us to discover clinically actionable biomarkers that can bridge fundamental biology and patient care.
What impact do you hope your research will have on patient care or public health in the near and long term?
In the near term, the goal is to enable earlier diagnosis and more accurate patient-stratification for therapeutics through minimally invasive blood-based tests, improving treatment decision-making and patient outcomes.
Over the longer term, the aim is to develop affordable, scalable diagnostic platforms that can be integrated into routine healthcare systems, ultimately improving survival rates and reducing the overall burden of cancer.
How has funding from the PA Research Foundation helped accelerate your research?
Funding has been instrumental in advancing this work. It has supported our laboratory teams in collecting, processing and analysing blood samples, and enabled the testing of thousands of biomarkers from lung cancer patients.
This work allows us to identify biomarkers associated with treatment response, resistance and toxicity, each of which plays an important role in personalising therapies for individual cancer patients.
What challenges do you frequently face in your research?
A key challenge is the acquisition, curation and integration of high-quality clinical data.
This requires significant input from clinical research personnel, including nurses and junior medical staff, to ensure accurate data collection and annotation. Addressing this challenge relies on strong interdisciplinary collaboration, improved data systems and ongoing support for both clinical and research teams.
Can you share a recent breakthrough or exciting development in your research?
A simple blood test could one day help determine whether a lung cancer patient is likely to respond to treatment or whether their cancer may return.
In our recent work, we identified 21 proteins circulating in the blood that change in meaningful ways depending on how patients respond to surgery or immunotherapy. Patients whose cancer did not return after surgery showed a distinct protein signature compared to those who relapsed.
We also found that patients who responded well to immunotherapy had lower levels of inflammatory proteins before treatment began, suggesting their immune system was already in a more receptive state.
Importantly, these signals were detected from a routine blood sample, without the need for an invasive tissue biopsy. By combining complementary protein detection technologies, we were able to capture a more sensitive and comprehensive picture, bringing us closer to a blood-based test that could guide treatment decisions and improve survival outcomes.
What’s the most rewarding part of your work, and what are you most proud of in your journey so far?
The most rewarding aspect is seeing the progression from discovery-based research through to translational application.
Contributing to the process that turns molecular insights into clinically meaningful tools is both significant and deeply fulfilling.
What’s a misconception people often have about your research?
Biomarker research is sometimes seen as a direct path to new cures. In reality, it provides the critical foundation for everything that follows - helping clinicians diagnose disease earlier, identify patients at risk, and match individuals to the treatments most likely to benefit them.
Looking ahead, what future directions or innovations excite you the most in your area of research?
Discovering a promising biomarker is only the first step. The real challenge is translating that discovery into a simple, affordable test that can be used in everyday clinical practice.
Our approach focuses on large-scale protein profiling to identify the most informative signals, then refining these into streamlined tests that can be realistically deployed in hospitals, bringing precision medicine closer to routine care.
How important are organisations like the PA Research Foundation in supporting research?
Discoveries that change patient outcomes are built on years of sustained, exploratory research that rarely fits neatly into short funding cycles.
The PA Research Foundation plays a vital role in making this possible by supporting the research community over the long term and ensuring promising discoveries are followed through to the point where they can make a real difference to patients.
The PA Research Foundation can’t do its work without its donors and supporters – what would you say to them?
Your generosity makes this work possible. Every contribution directly supports research that moves us closer to earlier diagnosis, better treatments and longer quality of life years for people with cancer. This is not abstract science, it is the foundation on which tomorrow’s clinical breakthroughs are built, and your support is what keeps that work moving forward.
