Microchip for quick, painless cancer detection developed

Shana Kelley, a professor at the University of Toronto's schools of medicine and pharmacy and lead investigator on the project said, “Today, it takes a room filled with computers to evaluate a clinically relevant sample of cancer biomarkers and the results aren’t quickly available.

“Our team was able to measure biomolecules on an electronic chip the size of your fingertip and analyse the sample within half an hour. The instrumentation required for this analysis can be contained within a unit the size of a BlackBerry.”

The working of the microchip
Researchers used non-materials for the first time to build the sensitive microchip to measures the cancer causing antigens in a urine or blood sample.

“We simply put a sample on the chip and we have a nice small chip reader that then analyses it and tells you what markers are in the sample,” said Kelley.

The device quickly picks up the ‘biomarkers’ that reveal the presence of cancer at the cellular level. In addition, they indicate whether the cancer is aggressive or benign. The new chip also shows the stage and severity of the tumor making the treatment process easier.

Analysis takes just 30 minutes, a far cry from the current diagnostic procedures that generally take days.

Ted Sargent, an engineering professor and another investigator in the project, stated, "Uniting DNA -- the molecule of life -- with speedy, miniaturized electronic chips is an example of cross-disciplinary convergence.

"By working with outstanding researchers in nanomaterials, pharmaceutical sciences, and electrical engineering, we were able to demonstrate that controlled integration of nanomaterials provides a major advantage in disease detection and analysis."

Microchip technology a non-invasive diagnosis for many ailments
The device is in the engineering stage and should be ready for use within a few years. Expert feel the microchip technology could be a breakthrough in surgery-free diagnosis of cancer patients.

“The real drive is toward non-invasive diagnostics so we can just screen people without having to take parts of their organs in order to do it,” said Kelly.

The microchip has been tested on models of prostate, head and neck cancer with promising results. It can also be used to detect other cancers as well as infectious diseases, like HIV and the H1N1 flu.

Dr. Tom Hudson, president and scientific director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research says, "The discovery by Dr. Kelley and her team offers the possibility of a faster, more cost-effective technology that could be used anywhere, speeding up diagnosis and helping to deliver a more targeted treatment to the patient."

The findings of the research have been published in Nature Nanotechnology.