Credits: Social Media
Find out if you have cancer in an hour with this newly developed portable device
At just a few dollars and impressively speedy, the latest revolutionary technology may have landed �with barely a splash.
Scientists have spent decades searching high (such as in a superhuman protein ) and low (like in the yeast used to make beer) for cancer vaccines and treatments. And with good reason: it remains the second biggest killer of Americans, year on year, and a major killer worldwide. Researchers based in Texas may have just brought us one step closer to a cancer-free world.
New biochip can detect cancer cheaply and accurately in minutes
Researchers from the University of Texas at El Paso may have overhauled our global capacity to detect and treat cancer.
They have created a portable device that can detect two types of cancer �prostate and colorectal more cheaply and quickly than previous, more established methods, they say.
Its low cost, says Li XiuJun, one of the scientists who developed the tool. Just a few dollars. And sensitive, which will make accurate disease diagnosis accessible to anyone, whether rich or poor.
“It is portable, rapid, and eliminates the need for specialized instruments.”
For this reason, the team hopes it will be especially useful in developing countries, where there isnt a sizeable budget for public health investment and cancer screenings.
Democratizing testing will ‘increase patients chance of survival’�
The most commonly used commercial method of cancer biomarker detection is known as ELISA, Li explains (per Science Daily).
Its expensive and sometimes takes 12 hours or more to process a single sample. Delays are even longer in rural areas of the US and developing countries because patient samples require transportation to larger cities with specialized instruments. As a result, more people die of cancer than would if detection were cheaper and quicker.�
This is where Li and his team come in.
“If you can detect biomarkers early on, before the cancer spreads, you increase a patient’s chance of survival,” he says. “Any delays in testing, especially in regions that don’t have access to expensive tools and instruments, can be very bad for a patient’s prognosis.”
Their device uses a special kind of paper and captures biomarkers within blood samples in just a few minutes, changes color, and indicates what type of cancer is detected and how far it has progressed.
Next steps for the device
As it stands, Li and his teams device detects prostate and colorectal cancers. However, he told Science Daily the method they devised can also work on other types of cancer.
It isnt available to the public yet. First, they need to finalize the prototype and test it on patients in a clinical trial, or multiple clinical trials. This could take several years.
But it seems like itll be worth the wait.
The device can analyze a sample in a single hour �much faster than existing tools. It is also more sensitive than traditional methods, meaning it can, in theory, detect cancer biomarkers in smaller quantities, and catch cancer earlier than other diagnostic methods.�
Lis innovation significantly improves point-of-care diagnostics by reducing detection times and the need for costly instruments, SD quotes Robert Kirken, dean of the College of Science, as saying.
I look forward to seeing what this innovation leads to.
You and me both, Robert!
