Aston-led research seeks improved detection of cancer

Aston University’s Professor Igor Meglinski led the team that has developed a new method of analysing crystals in dehydrated blood. Their paper “Insights into polycrystalline microstructure of blood films with 3D Mueller matrix imaging approach” has been published in Scientific Reports.

Professor Meglinski from the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies used a new polarisation-based image reconstruction technique to analyse polycrystalline structures in dried blood samples.

The proteins in blood change their shape and how they fit together during the early stages of diseases like cancer.

Professor Meglinski and his team used changes in the proteins' unique 3D shape together with its quaternary structure - which is how multiple proteins join together - to detect and classify cells.

This technique enabled the researchers to conduct a layer-by-layer analysis of dry blood smears, which Aston said is crucial for identifying significant differences between healthy and cancerous samples. The researchers analysed 108 blood film samples from three groups, namely healthy volunteers, those who had prostate cancer, and a third group who had the illness and had cells that were more likely to spread aggressively.