One of the biggest factors in successfully fighting cancer is effective early detection - the sooner that doctors can detect cancers at the cellular level, the higher the chances of survival. Now, an electrical engineer from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) has created a unique new cancer cell detection method that could achieve this using a tool that monitors the behavior of cells in real time using nanotextured walls that mimic layers of human body tissue.
Samir Iqbal and his team developed the tool after noticing the many layers of tissue present in the human body, believing that using a method that mimics this layering would help provide more effective diagnoses of cancers at the cellular level.
"The answer was in creating a nanotextured wall that fools blood samples into thinking its actual tissue," Iqbal said in a press release. "We used inherent properties of the cell walls to create a diagnostic tool. The cancer cells behave differently as they come into contact with the nanotextured walls. They dance."
Using their new tool, doctors will be able to identify these "dancing cells" and begin treating cancer earlier than current technologies allow.
"Discovering the cancer earlier, before it metastasizes, is essential to surviving cancer," Iqbal said. "Our device has the potential to do that."
Khosrow Behbehani, dean of UTA's College of Engineering, believes that this research is groundbreaking and will lead to great advancements in the field.
"Dr. Iqbal and his colleagues are bringing engineering innovation to meet the challenge of early cancer detection," Behbehani said. "The research aligns with UTA's Strategic Plan, particularly the focus on Health and the Human Condition. Dr. Iqbal's device could greatly improve cancer survival rates, which is good news for humanity. There are very few people around the world whose lives have not been touched by this dreadful disease."
The findings were published in the Sept. 16 issue of Scientific Reports.
