The NEL in collaboration with Prof Magdalena Plebanski (Monash University) have been granted seed funding from the Monash Institute for Medical Engineering to develop a simplified blood test to determine if a patient diagnosed with ovarian cancer will respond positively to a widely available and inexpensive drug. Plebanski has found that ~30% of patients will respond postively to this drug, so it is important to identify early those patients who will, or will not, respond. Currently a test exists but it is based on a complex multi-parameter flow cytometry panel which is not appropriate for most hospital labs, especially outside of tertiary health centres. Our challenge is to simplify this assay so that it can be performed quickly, in a basic laboratory, without expensive equipment.