A Pakistani electrical engineer based at the University of Texas has developed device to diagnose cancer rapidly at the cellular level, improve early detection.
Samir Iqbal – an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department – detailed his team’s results in a recent Nature’s Scientific Reports paper called “Effects of Nanotexture on Electrical Profiling of Single Tumor Cell and Detection of Cancer from Blood in Microfluidic Channels.”
Iqbal completed his bachelor’s in electrical engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. He went on to pursue his postgraduate studies in the US, where he completed his PhD from the University of Purdue in 2007. Since then, Iqbal has been with the UTA and has received nearly $1.4 million in grants since his arrival. The tool works by tracking cellular behavior in real time using nanotextured walls that mimic layers of body tissue.
Iqbal said that his team observed the many layers of tissue in the human body and decided to develop something that would mimic that layering. His device studies the behaviour of cells in real time, using nanotextured walls. Iqbal said his team noted the many layers of tissue in the human body and decided to develop something that would mimic that layering. “We used inherent properties of the cell walls to create a diagnostic tool. The cancer cells behave differently as they come into contact with the nanotextured walls. They dance.”
Identifying those “dancing cells” will help doctors pinpoint cancer cells and start treatment earlier than allowed with current technology. “Discovering the cancer earlier, before it metastasizes, is essential to surviving cancer,” Iqbal said. “Our device has the potential to do that.”
The published results stem from a 2014 $480,000 National Science Foundation funding that sponsored the design and creation of the device. Iqbal has received nearly $1.4 million in grants since his arrival at UTA in 2007. Those grants included an NSF CAREER grant to create a nanoelectronic microfluidic biochip to detect biomarkers. He also directs the UTA Nano-Bio Lab and is an affiliated faculty for the UTA Bioengineering Department.
