Institute of Photonic Sciences
Scientists say they’ve developed a lab-on-a-chip device capable of detecting protein markers for cancer.
The device can detect very low concentrations of protein markers in the blood, enabling cancer diagnosis in its earliest stages, the team says.
Romain Quidant, PhD, of The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues described the device in Nano Letters.
The lab on a chip hosts 32 sensing sites distributed across a network of 8 fluidic microchannels that enables it to conduct multiple analyses.
Gold nanoparticles lie on the surface of the chip and are chemically programed with an antibody receptor in such a way that they are capable of specifically attracting the protein markers circulating in blood.
When a drop of blood is injected into the chip, it circulates through the microchannels, and, if cancer markers are present in the blood, they will stick to the nanoparticles located on the microchannels as they pass by, setting off changes in what is known as the plasmonic resonance.
The device monitors these changes, the magnitude of which is directly related to the concentration/number of markers in the patient’s blood. In this way, it provides a direct assessment of the patient’s risk of developing cancer.
“The most fascinating finding is that we are capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of this protein in a matter of minutes, making this device an ultra-high-sensitivity, state-of-the-art, powerful instrument that will benefit early detection and treatment monitoring of cancer,” Dr Quidant said.
