Scoop Up Cancer Cells for Analysis

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a microfluidics chip that captures rare cancer cells in numbers that are high enough to enable analysis for molecular markers, reports Technology Review's Emily Singer. The device could save patients the hassle and pain of tumor biopsies since a sufficient number of cells could be culled from the bloodstream, and doctors could pick better drugs for their patients by doing the molecular marker analysis, she adds. The device itself has a "herringbone design which generates a vortex in the blood flowing through it," Singer says. "This mixing brings the cells in greater contact with antibodies on the surface of the chip. These antibodies bind to molecules specific to cancer cells."