NanoVelcro Chip (IMAGE)

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

NanoVelcro Chip

Caption

A team of investigators from Cedars-Sinai and UCLA is using a new blood-analysis technique and tiny experimental device to help physicians predict which cancers are likely to spread by identifying and characterizing tumor cells circulating through the blood. The investigators are conducting "liquid biopsies" by running blood through a postage-stamp-sized chip with nanowires 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and coated with antibodies, or proteins, that recognize circulating tumor cells. The device, the NanoVelcro Chip, works by "grabbing" circulating tumor cells, which break away from tumors and travel through the bloodstream, looking for places in the body to spread.

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Cedars-Sinai

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