Samir Iqbal, an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department, detailed his team’s results in a recent Nature’s Scientific Reports paper (“Effects of Nanotexture on Electrical Profiling of Single Tumor Cell and Detection of Cancer from Blood in Microfluidic Channels”).
“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.”Identifying those “dancing cells” will help doctors pinpoint cancer cells and start treatment earlier than allowed with current technology.“Discovering the cancer earlier, before it metastasizes, is essential to surviving cancer,” Iqbal said. “Our device has the potential to do that.