Nano-scale fluids might help treat cancer
Researcher Dean Felsher developed a tube about the size of a large sewing needle.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have created a device that could help doctors identify what are called “oncoproteins.” This research might eventually enable doctors to better diagnose and treat early–stage cancers.
The oncoproteins are telltale chemicals produced by tumors even at their earliest stages. Earth & Sky spoke with Stanford researcher Dean Felsher. He’s developed a tube about the size of a large sewing needle that uses a technology called nanofluidics. Inside the tube, a system of channels processes very small amounts of liquid taken from cancer cells, identifying and isolating the oncoproteins present.
Felsher: What may one day happen is that we’d be able to put a needle in a lymph node and run it for a profile of different oncoproteins and if we found there were certain oncoproteins that were markedly elevated, we’d have a very high diagnostic suspicion that there was a cancer.
Felsher told Earth & Sky that the tool could also help develop cancer drugs.
Felsher: Let’s say you wanted to develop a drug that targeted a particular oncoprotein. This machine will be useful for helping you know whether or not you’re succeeding, whether or not the drug is actually targeting that oncoprotein.
The device is still in the testing stage.
Thanks to the National Science Foundation.
Our thanks to:
Dean Felsher
Stanford Medical School
Very Interesting Article.