The speed and accuracy provided by their device is welcome news to cancer researchers.

"We rely on the measurement of biomarkers to detect cancer and to know if treatments are working," says Dr. Tom Hudson, president and scientific director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. "The discovery by Dr. Kelley and her team offers the possibility of a faster, more cost-effective technology that could be used anywhere, speeding up diagnosis and helping to deliver a more targeted treatment to the patient."

The team's microchip platform has been tested on prostate cancer, as described in a paper published in ACS Nano, and head and neck cancer models. It could potentially be used to diagnose and assess other cancers, as well as infectious diseases such as HIV, MRSA and H1N1 flu.

"The system developed by the Kelley/Sargent team is a revolutionary technology that could allow us to track biomarkers that might have significant relevance to cancer, with a combination of speed, sensitivity, and accuracy not available with any current technology," says Dr. Fei-Fei Liu, a radiation oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital and Head of Applied Molecular Oncology Division, Ontario Cancer Institute. "This type of approach could have a profound impact on the future management for our cancer patients."

Source: University of Toronto