Detecting cancer with the prick of a finger

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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at BYU have created a micro device that could both decrease the amount of blood and time needed to test for cancer-markers in a patient’s blood.

Chemistry professor Adam Woolley's research, published in a recent issue of the journal, Lab on a Chip, details the device and technique that would allow for effective detection of biomarkers in a blood sample in a matter of minutes rather than days or weeks.

“You could walk into the doctor’s office, the nurse could ####### your finger instead of sticking a needle in your vein, and 30 or 40 minutes later, you’d get the results back in the same doctor’s office,” Woolley said.

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The new micro device can also detect multiple cancer biomarkers in blood simultaneously. In this particular round of research, Woolley and his team used the chip to detect four biomarkers simultaneously, but the device has the potential to detect upwards of 10 or 20.

Woolley said he and his team are now looking at ways to speed up the biomarker detection process even more. Ideally, he’d like to get the 30- to 40-minute process down to 20, 15 or even 10 minutes.

“If you learn from your doctor that you might have a life-threatening disease and that some initial testing must be performed, you don’t want to wait weeks to find out what’s going on,” Woolley said. “You’d like to know that very day.”

Woolley’s research was funded by a National Institutes of Health grant awarded in 2006. Other co-authors on the study were post-doctorates Ming Yu and Xiuhua Sun.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-cancer-finger-video.html

[mawilson 2,133]

() -- Researchers at BYU have created...

Boo-Yah University?

[Ban Hammer 14,364]

Boo-Yah University?

told ya them aussies are smart.