We saw a picture the other day of a device that looked like a piece of Lego wired to a piece of plastic with four electric posts on the corners of the plastic.? It reminded me of a toy telegraph key to send Morse Code.? Actually, it was a device that held a sticky silicon chip that its inventors say might one day help develop therapies for prostate cancer?as well as other cancers!? Ah, but it?s tough to describe how it will work, but if you stick with me I?ll try explain.
The geniuses who thought this up, by the way, comprise a team of researchers at Weil Cornell Medical College and Cornell?s College of Engineering.? Their idea is to have this chip device capture a high concentration of rare cancer cells?from metastatic cancer patients?for a quick non-invasive analysis to test the efficacy of the chemotherapy the patient is receiving. Why?? Turns out metastatic tumor cells mutate and can develop resistance to an effective drug therapy. What to do? Change and match the next drug to the patient?s tumor. Metastatic cancer is one that spreads from the place it started and gravitates to another place in the body. Commonly the bones, lungs and liver. It accounts for the majority of cancer deaths.
There are some cell capturing devices currently in use, but they contain antibodies that bind to an antigen found on the surface of nearly all malignant prostate cancer cells. The problem is these antibodies also bind with other cells in the bloodstream and collect a sample that is highly impure.? The new device is called the GEDI. And what it does is pump a milliliter of blood through a nano scale channel that?s filled with tiny posts. They?re only a millionths of a meter in diameter (a couple of what are known as microns).? And these are coated with antibodies.? The posts are offset so that only cells larger than 15 microns will collide with the posts and stick to them.? Most of the smaller cells just flow right by.? The inventors say that most cancer cells are bigger and more rigid than normal cells and the trick is to have the cancer cells collide with the posts and stick to them! Result: the sample of captured cells in the blood is extremely pure. From what we hear the GEDI device is set to go into clinical trial this year. In the interim, the researchers say they are working on detectors for breast ovarian and pancreatic cancers. All good news.
If you?d like to get the full report, check out the April 2012 issue of the Journal PLoS ONE.
Norman Morris
Source: http://www.prostatecancersurvivorspeak.com/this-chip-takes-prisoners-rare-rogue-cancer-cells/
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