Circulating turmor cells (CTCs) are primary tumor cells shed into the circulatory system and ultimately develop into cancer cells in distant organs and regarded as crucial biomarkers. Early detection of CTCs in a patient's blood is the key to accurate prognosis and effective treatment monitoring. Current CTC detection techniques often require reliable cell surface biomarkers, which results in issues associate with all molecular-marker based methods, such as low efficacy, high cost, and time-consuming. Here, we propose a nanotechnology to identify CTCs in whole blood based on measuring the mechanical properties of CTCs with a "tactile" microfluidics. The proposed technology is based on the pr...

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Circulating turmor cells (CTCs) are primary tumor cells shed into the circulatory system and ultimately develop into cancer cells in distant organs and regarded as crucial biomarkers. Early detection of CTCs in a patient's blood is the key to accurate prognosis and effective treatment monitoring. Current CTC detection techniques often require reliable cell surface biomarkers, which results in issues associate with all molecular-marker based methods, such as low efficacy, high cost, and time-consuming. Here, we propose a nanotechnology to identify CTCs in whole blood based on measuring the mechanical properties of CTCs with a "tactile" microfluidics. The proposed technology is based on the principle that during the transition from tumor to cancer, cells must significantly decrease their membrane stiffness, in comparison to that of primary tumor cells or normal blood cells, which allows tumor cells to escape and migrate to the other tissues. This deformability (low membrane stifness) specific to CTCs would allow us to detect and potentially identify them in whole blood sample. A novel thin-film strain sensor capable of measuring pico-Newton force at a sensitivity of 0.15nN/nm with current prototype can be used to achieve such objectives. When the whole blood containing CTCs pass through a microchannel made of the thin-film sensor, cells with different membrane stiffness exert different forces on the sensor that can measured directly. The CTCs can then be identified based on their unique force profiles distinct from those of other blood cells. With the help of this technique, we will establish force profiles for red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and various CTCs, and relate them to cell stiffness through modeling. Additionally, these force profiles will also allow us to further determine origins and progression of these CTCs. Ultimately, this technique will be optimized to become an efficient tool for the early diagnosis of all types of cancers.

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