A “worm-on-a-chip” device tracks nematodes’ movements toward odor molecules produced by lung cancer cells.
By Katie Cottingham, American Chemical Society
It could noninvasively diagnose cancer at an earlier stage.
Dogs can use their incredible sense of smell to sniff out various forms of cancer in human breath, blood and urine samples. Similarly, in the lab a much simpler organism, the roundworm C. elegans, wriggles its way toward cancer cells by following an odor trail. Today, scientists report a device that uses the tiny worms to detect lung cancer cells. This “worm-on-a-chip” could someday help doctors noninvasively diagnose cancer at an earlier stage.
The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2022 is a hybrid meeting being held virtually and in-person March 20-24, with on-demand access available March 21-April 8. The meeting features more than 12,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.
Early diagnosis of cancer is critical for effective treatment and survival, says Nari Jang, a graduate student who is presenting the work at the meeting. Therefore, cancer screening methods should be quick, easy, economical and noninvasive. Currently, doctors diagnose lung cancer by imaging tests or biopsies, but these methods often can’t detect tumors at their earliest stages. Although dogs can be trained to sniff out human cancer, they aren’t practical to keep in labs. So Jang and Shin Sik Choi, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator, decided to use worms called nematodes, which are tiny (~1 mm in length), easy to grow in the lab and have an extraordinary sense of smell, to develop a noninvasive cancer diagnostic test.
Continue reading… “Worm-on-a-Chip’ Could Diagnose Lung Cancer”
