There’s a major breakthrough in the cancer field that infuses medical research and technology.
Scientists from the University of Michigan have been testing a wearable device that detects cancer cells in circulating blood. So far, the device has shown success on dogs, as per the published results in the journal Nature Communications.
Obstacles to overcome in design
When developing the device, the research team knew they would face some hurdles, including:
• Because the device was going to be a wearable, it had to be small. But fitting blood screening and analysis technology into a 2” by 2.75” by 1” device when it normally requires a device several feet tall was challenging.
• The device needed to be effective.
• The device needed to be safe and sterile.
• The blood could not clot and the cells could not clog the chip in the core of the device.
Getting creative
The team developed a system that mixed the blood going through the device with heparin, an anti-blood clotting agent.
The researchers also ensured the device remained sterile to avoid affecting the antibodies that the chip used to identify which cells were cancerous.
They used graphene oxide to allow the chip to identify and filter more than 80% of cancer cells.
Applying the devices
To test the wearables, researchers sedated healthy dogs and then gave them injections with human cancer cells.
According to MedicalNewsToday.com, the scientists claim this treatment has no long-term effects on the dogs because their immune systems get rid of the foreign cells within a few hours.
Every 20 minutes, blood samples are taken from the dogs and screen for cancer cells using the same design as the chips in the wearables.
It’s interesting to note that the researchers found the wearables to work even better than in-vitro analysis. In fact, they wearable device collected 3.5 times more cancer cells per milliliter of blood than the chip that scanned in vitro.
The next step is to test the device on dogs that already have cancer.
