Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have designed nanoparticle sensors that could diagnose early-stage cancer through a simple urine test on a strip of paper.
The scientists said these sensors, designed to detect many cancerous proteins, could also distinguish the type of tumor, how it responds to treatment, and whether it has metastasized.
“We are trying to innovate in a context of making technology available to low- and middle-resource settings. Putting this diagnostic on paper is part of our goal of democratizing diagnostics and creating inexpensive technologies that can give you a fast answer at the point of care,” said Sangeeta Bhatia, a biomedical engineer at MIT and senior author of the study published on April 24 in Nature Nanotechnology….