Device uses magnetic beads for early cancer diagnosis

While other researchers have used magnetic beads for similar applications, the new ‘high-throughput’ system has the ability to quickly process and analyse large volumes of blood or other fluids, said Cagri Savran, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

He is working with oncologists at the Indiana University School of Medicine to further develop the technology, which recently was highlighted in the journal Lab on a Chip.

The approach is said to combine immunomagnetic separation and microfluidics. In immunomagnetic separation, magnetic beads about a micron in diameter are or coated (or functionalised) with antibodies that recognise and attach to antigens on the surface of target cells.

The researchers functionalised the beads to recognise breast cancer and lung cancer cells in laboratory cultures. 

‘We were able to detect cancer cells with up to a 90 per cent yield,’ said Savran, who worked with Purdue postdoctoral fellow Chun-Li Chang and medical researchers Shadia Jalal and Daniela E. Matei from the IU School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine. ‘We expect this system to be useful in a wide variety of settings, including detection of rare cells for clinical applications.’