Early diagnosis of cancer can greatly improve the treatment and recovery of patients. Among them, biopsy and screening are currently the most commonly used and most accurate methods to find tumor markers in the blood. However, this process is usually expensive and time-consuming, because blood samples must be sent to a central laboratory for analysis, and, for patients, the sampling process can also cause trauma and pain.

In this context, the appearance of biosensors provides a cheaper, faster, and more insidious new option for cancer detection. A biosensor, as it stands, is a sensor device that is sensitive to biological substances and can convert the concentration into an electrical signal to stop the detection.

The biosensor consists of identification elements, immobilized biologically sensitive materials (including enzymes, antibodies, antigens, microorganisms, cells, tissues, nucleic acids and other biologically active substances), appropriate physical and chemical transducers (such as oxygen electrodes, photosensitive tubes, field effect tubes) , Piezoelectric crystals, etc.) and analysis tools or systems composed of signal amplification devices.

However, most of the optical biosensors used to monitor cancer require a wide range of light colors as a basis for reliable operation. The demand for a wide range of light colors makes the sensors bulky, expensive and more complex. In the past, EPFL scientists have proposed a new concept that allows a single light color to operate as a simple imaging detector.

The new biosensor uses two specific functions, including nanophotonics and data science technology. The chip itself is constructed from nanostructures made of silicon. The surface of nano-structured silicon has features around 100 nanometers, which can more effectively capture light on the biological sample/chip interface. This makes the biosensor extremely sensitive to the presence of biomarkers, resulting in significant changes in the characteristics of the incident light.

Researchers apply data science techniques to separate the pre-recorded performance graphs to handle the light intensity information from a large number of pixels. The system considers the efficiency of each pixel and adjusts its contribution to the final reading in a collective manner. The researchers likened this process to a reliable conclusion after receiving the opinions of a group of experts, carefully weighing their knowledge in the field.

The scientists of the project created a demonstration that uses new biosensors to stop cancer diagnosis and detect tumor exons, which are biomarkers of early cancer. The team affirmed that the image-based biosensor can monitor breast cancer exons in real-time within the universal detection range, making it clinically meaningful for people who are healthy and sick.

It can be said that although only a single color of light is used, the system provides extremely accurate biosensing information. Regarding the application value of this innovative technology, it is being used in the early detection of cancer and other diseases. Because of its faster speed, it greatly reduces the time cost of diagnosis, which is conducive to faster diagnosis of diseases, which will better benefit mankind. Ankang.