Supersensitive Nanodevice can Detect Extremely Early Cancers

Jim Steele | Phys.org

Extremely early detection of cancers and other diseases is on the horizon with a supersensitive nanodevice being developed at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in collaboration with The Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN) in Greensboro, NC.

The device is ready for packaging into a lunchbox-size unit that ultimately may use a cellphone app to provide test results.

“We are submitting grant applications with our collaborator Dr. Jianjun Wei, an associate professor at the JSNN, to the National Institutes of Health to fund our future integration work,” says Dr. Yongbin Lin, a research scientist at UAH’s Nano and Micro Devices Center who has been working on the nanodevice at the core of the diagnostic unit for about five years. “In the future, we will do an integration of the system with everything inside a box. If we get funding support, I think that within three to five years it may be realized.”

The sensitivity of the equipment holds promise for finding cancer at a very early stage, even while it is at the small cluster of cells level, says Dr. Lin. “At that stage, it is easier to treat.”

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