Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are cancer cells that escape from primary tumour sites and enter the bloodstream. This metastasis is responsible for the majority of deaths from cancer. Monitoring the level of CTC levels in blood is thus important but has proved difficult to do. A team of researchers in China and the US has now developed a new way to isolate these cells using a technique called size-amplified acoustofluidics in which the CTCs selectively bind to microbeads.
The bound cancer cells are significantly different in terms of size and physical properties (they are stiffer, for example) compared to normal cells, explain the researchers led by Feng Guo of Indiana University in Bloomington in the US. This means that their acoustic radiation force is a 100-fold higher than that of bare CTCs or normal blood cells. They can thus be efficiently sorted from blood using microbeads (the “size-amplifiers”) in a travelling acoustic wave microfluidic device, and then released from the amplifiers by being degraded with enzymes.
The technique is 77% efficient and produces CTCs with a 96% yield.
Image Credit: Huiqin Liu
News This Week
Ancient bacteria strain discovered in ice cave is resistant to some modern antibiotics
In the depths of Scarisoara cave in Romania sits one of the world’s biggest underground glaciers, a monumental slab of ice the size of roughly 40 Olympic swimming pools that began to form around [...]
Scientists Identify “Good” Bacteria That May Prevent Long COVID
According to the WHO, about 6% of people worldwide who get COVID-19, roughly 400 million people, later develop a long-lasting form of the illness. That shows the condition remains a significant public health challenge. In [...]
New book from Nanoappsmedical Inc. – Global Health Care Equivalency
A new book by Frank Boehm, NanoappsMedical Inc. Founder. This groundbreaking volume explores the vision of a Global Health Care Equivalency (GHCE) system powered by artificial intelligence and quantum computing technologies, operating on secure [...]
RNA Recycling Extends Lifespan
Summary: Researchers discovered a biological “trash disposal” mechanism that directly controls how fast we age. While circular RNA has long been known to accumulate in cells as we get older, this study proves for the [...]
Cancer’s Deadly Paradox: How Tumors Break Their Own DNA To Keep Growing
Cancer’s strongest gene switches push DNA into damaging overdrive, creating repeated breaks and repairs that may fuel tumor evolution while exposing possible therapeutic weak spots. A new study indicates that cancer can harm its own genetic [...]
NanoMedical Brain/Cloud Interface – Explorations and Implications. A new book from Frank Boehm
New book from Frank Boehm, NanoappsMedical Inc Founder: This book explores the future hypothetical possibility that the cerebral cortex of the human brain might be seamlessly, safely, and securely connected with the Cloud via [...]
Our books now available worldwide!
Online Sellers other than Amazon, Routledge, and IOPP Indigo Global Health Care Equivalency in the Age of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Artifcial Intelligence Global Health Care Equivalency In The Age Of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine And Artificial [...]
Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks, bolstering origin-of-life theories
All the essential ingredients to make the DNA and RNA underpinning life on Earth have been discovered in samples collected from the asteroid Ryugu, scientists said Monday. The discovery comes after these building blocks [...]
Leave A Comment