Researchers at the Michigan University have developed a method to detect cancer cells in circulating blood using laser technology.
Reports on January 6 show that the discovery is a major leap in the knowledge about cancer treatment, especially for lung and pancreatic cancers.
Progress in cancer research
The new method of detecting cancer cells preserves living cells for further studies in the future. This eliminates a major limitation in previous cancer research which killed the cancer cells in the process.
It uses a cell-sorting device with laser technology and machine learning to identify cancer cells with 99% accuracy.
Commenting on the laser method, Sunitha Nagrath, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan said:
âThese existing techniques usually involve methods that end up killing the cancer cells, thus preventing us from utilizing these cells for further investigation.â
Nagrath further described the process of detecting cancer cells, which uses a circular maze called Labyrinth to separate larger cancer cells from smaller blood cells.
âItâs like driving around a curve in a bicycle versus a truckâthe forces you experience are very different. As a result, the larger tumor cells get focused into different locations compared to smaller white blood cells.â
The cells are then examined after separation using biolaser emission technique which reveals how the DNA is organized inside cancer cells.
The machine learning component of the method, while trained using pancreatic cancer cells, was able to identify lung cancer cells without further training, giving the team much hope and a vision for developing the technology further.
Previous cancer breakthroughs
Before now, cancer research has received a fair share of attention, with some progress made.
Last year, scientists discovered a way to cure colon cancer without destroying the cells, similar to this laser screening technology.
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