Using the same technology that makes a quartz watch work, graduate students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a tiny sensor that can find cancer markers in a just a drop of blood. The ACuRay chip, as the inventors have called it, hums when an electrical current runs through it. The ACuRay chip has man-made antibodies attached to tiny electrodes, which attract and hold on to very specific molecules that are markers for certain types of cancer. When the antibodies attach to the specific cancer markers, the pitch of the sensor’s hum changes. The experiments performed so far used a man-made antibody that attracts and attaches to mesothelin, a marker for mesothelioma (asbestos-related cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen), ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. The sensor is not ready for practical applications yet, but the investors believe that, in addition to cancer screening, it may someday be valuable to detect other types of disease and to monitor the effectiveness of treatments.
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