Team touts cancer ‘lab on a chip’
October 8, 2009
(M2M comment- Dr. Aaron Wheeler at the Canadian Cancer Society Innovative Research in Cancer Event, Sept. 23, 2009, showed a similar device he is developing to detect Prostate Cancer.)
Joseph Hall HEALTH REPORTER TORONTO STAR
Aaron Wheeler holds a petri dish bearing a lump of breast tissue that resembles, in size and appearance, a piece of chewed gum.
In his right, the University of Toronto chemist holds a microchip array, about the size of a credit card, bearing a drop of red liquid about a thousand times smaller than the glob of flesh. The drop represents the minute amount of cells that Wheeler’s tiny board needs to accurately gauge estrogen levels in a woman’s breast tissue. Read more
Analyzing Cancer Cells to Choose Treatments
September 30, 2009
Microfluidics chips allow scientists to study circulating cancer cells and determine their vulnerabilities.
By Emily Singer from MIT Technology Review
In a new clinical trial for prostate cancer, scientists will capture rare tumor cells circulating in patients’ blood, analyze them using a specialized microchip, and use the results to try to predict how well the patient will respond to a drug. The trial reflects a new phase of personalized medicine for cancer, enabled by microfluidics technologies that can isolate scarce cancer cells and detect very small changes in gene expression. Read more
Microchip spots cancer quickly and painlessly
September 28, 2009
by Megan Ogilvie & Joseph Hall
Toronto Star
Toronto researchers have developed a portable device they say will accurately diagnose prostate cancer in 30 minutes. Read more