To obtain a highly-accurate cancer diagnosis, researchers at the University of Kansas have developed a new device that could allow doctors to detect cancer quickly from a droplet of blood or plasma, leading to timelier interventions and better outcomes for patients.
According to the German news agency, the new device, named "lab-on-a-chip", detects exosomes, tiny parcels of biological information produced by tumor cells to stimulate tumor growth or metastasize.
The Tech Xplore website quoted Yong Zeng, associate professor of chemistry at KU, saying: "Historically, people thought exosomes were like 'trash bags' that cells could use to dump unwanted cellular contents. But in the past decade, scientists realized they were quite useful for sending messages to recipient cells and communicating molecular information important in many biological functions."
The researcher said the new lab-on-a-chip's key innovation is a 3D nanoengineering method that pushes exosomes into contact with the chip's sensing surface much more efficiently in a process called "mass transfer."
The research team tested the chip's design using clinical samples from ovarian cancer patients, finding the chip could detect the presence of cancer in a minuscule amount of plasma.
