This new nano robot-based diagnostic tool may help in improving cancer treatments, allow for better treatment control, enable early interventions and change decision-making from reactive actions towards more predictive early interventions, he added.
Maharashtra Institute of Medical Education and Research (MIMER), Pune has developed a nano robot that is programmed to capture and isolate circulating tumor cells. The tool is expected to lead to a new rapid and accurate diagnostic method for cancer, said Dr Shashwat Banerjee, Scientist at MIMER Medical College at Talegaon Dabhade in Pune.
“In search of better cancer diagnostics, scientists from MIMER, Pune, synthesized multifunctional nanorobot using magnesium-iron oxide Janus nanoparticles. The reported nano robot tested on blood containing a low number of cancer cells exhibited ~100% capture efficiency in less than five minutes. The nano robot was further clinically validated by testing it on a cancer patient’s blood samples and it exhibited rapid and efficient circulating tumour cells (CTC) capture ability,” Dr Banerjee said in a statement.
The findings were published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Chemistry under the title ‘Water-Powered Self-Propelled Magnetic Nanobot for Rapid and Highly Efficient Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells’.
This new nano robot-based diagnostic tool may help in improving cancer treatments, allow for better treatment control, enable early interventions and change decision-making from reactive actions towards more predictive early interventions, he added.
According to a recently released report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (NCDIR), the number of cancer cases in the country will rise to 15.6 lakh by 2025. This will be an increase of 12 per cent from the current estimated cases. With this rising global burden, prevention and cure of cancer is one of the most important public health challenges of the 21st century.
For carrying out this advanced research, the Department of Science & Technology and the Department of Biotechnology under the government of India has provided a fund of nearly Rs 1 crore to the Central Research Laboratory of MIMER.
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