Fri, Jan 01, 2016 page4

• Fast, cost-efficient screening kit for cancer developed

  • By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
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  National Taiwan University (NTU) and the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) researchers have developed a fast screening kit for cancer and infectious diseases that costs only about one-10th of the price of existing products and is 12 times more sensitive than similar kits.

  NTU biomedical engineering professor Lin Chii-wann (林啟萬) yesterday said it took his team five years to develop a disposable multifunctional chip that can be used to detect cancer, tuberculosis, bird flu and other diseases.

  Traditionally, the detection of breast cancer and lung cancer relies on enzyme assays to detect the presence of a substance, usually an antigen, by using enzymes to interact with targeted antigens to create color change for detection. This requires a trained technician to conduct the test, which generally takes between four and six hours to complete, Lin said.

  

  Lin Chii-wann, a professor at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, yesterday in Taipei displays a newly developed chip that can detect bird flu and tuberculosis within half an hour.

  Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times

  The team did away with enzyme-based methods and developed an optical biosensor that detects a substance by measuring its reflected light from a specially coated surface, Lin said.

  The team’s chip test kit also comes with specially designed DNA probes, which can be applied to targeted proteins to identify tested materials without relying on enzyme activity, he said.

  The chip can complete a tumor screening in 30 minutes, and the operation is so simple that it requires no training to administer the screening, he said.

  “The team’s sensor is 12 times more sensitive than other optical biosensors, and we can detect tumor cells simply with a saliva sample, without a blood test. Blood has 10 times more substances than saliva, but our chip is so sensitive that it can yield accurate results with a minimal sample,” he said.

  At present, cancer-screening chips are imported and cost about NT$3,000 each, but the team’s chip costs about NT$200, which the team expects to revolutionize the market, he said, adding that the team has acquired eight patents from Taiwan and eight from the US.

  National Taiwan University Hospital physician Chen Wen-Shiang (陳文翔) and NARL researchers have also developed an optical imaging device for in vivo detection of cancer cell growth on animals, which can observe the fluorescence and cold light emitted by cancer cells inside living organisms to evaluate the effectiveness of a cancer therapy.

  There are only 30 optical imaging devices in the nation, which are shared by 300 laboratories, Chen said.

  The imaging devices are about the size of a refrigerator and cost NT$13 million (US$395,852) each, while his team’s device is only one-10th as large and costs NT$2 million, which is affordable to most laboratories.
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