Valencian researchers lead the development of a chip for the "early and cheap" detection of cancer

VALENCIA, Apr. 10 (EUROPA PRESS) -

Research staff from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) --belonging to the Center for Nanophotonic Technology and the CVBLab, and from the company DAS Photonics-- are working on the development of a chip for the early detection of cancer and infectious diseases.

This is a new European project, part of the prestigious EIC-Pathfinder program, which aims to "revolutionize the field of biomedical imaging and diagnosis".

Under the name 'Disrupt', a "radically" new technology, integrated tomographic microscopy, will be developed to help detect cancer early, "quickly and cheaply".

What the project proposes is to carry out cell tomography on a photonic chip, not only creating a miniaturized version of the current systems, but also improving and universalizing these techniques for the study and treatment of cancer and infected cells.

"Tomography is the biomedical imaging technique used in conventional CT scans, a diagnostic test used to create detailed images of internal organs, bones, tissues, etc.

In our case, we take this concept and take it to a photonic chip to be able to obtain images of the cells --specifically, 2D refractive index maps--, and to be able to verify their nature to establish both the diagnosis and the possible evolution of the disease. patient. It would be, saving the distance, like having a CT scan on a chip and using it to obtain images of cells for later analysis", points out Amadeu Griol, researcher and group leader at the Center for Nanophotonic Technology of the UPV.

According to the researchers from the UPV and DAS Photonics, being able to have this cellular information available in real time and in a miniaturized device opens up endless possibilities for the study, diagnosis and treatment of cancer or infectious diseases, in addition to making this technique universal. using a low cost device.

"This project is highly multidisciplinary, involves professionals from various scientific fields and combines techniques such as integrated photonic design of nanoantennas, microfluidics or artificial intelligence for the reconstruction of these cellular images", adds Sergio Lechago, senior research engineer at DAS Photonics and coordinator project technician.

In addition, Disrupt's technology will open new avenues in the investigation and characterization of stem cells, as well as in the phenotyping of immunocytes, or the pathological classification of tissues, among other biomedical techniques.

"All this through this device integrated into a photonic chip, based on Phase Tomographic Microscopy (TPM). Disrupt represents a paradigm shift, since it guarantees the realization of tomographic microscopes that are much cheaper, lighter, smaller and with better resolution. and features than the few currently existing systems", comments Carlos García Meca, Director of Research at DAS Photonics and coordinator of the project.

"In this way, this equipment could be installed in any health center or outpatient clinic, thus facilitating medical diagnosis and opening up new possibilities in telemedicine," adds Maribel Gómez, postdoctoral researcher at the UPV's Center for Nanophotonic Technology.

For the development and validation of this new device, the Disrupt project will focus on prostate and gynecological cancer tumor cells and the analysis of infected cells.

"With our technology we will be able to reconstruct an image of the cell to find out if it is a tumor or benign in the case of cancer or to distinguish and anticipate different types of diseases or infectious processes. For cell identification, we will use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques, For this, we compare our results with different medical imaging databases of the different types of cells of interest", points out Adrián Colomer, a researcher at the CVBLab of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

The project began last December and will continue until the end of 2025. With a budget of three million euros, it also has the participation of the Valencian Institute of Oncology (IVO), the National Tumor Institute of Milan, the Max Institute Planck for the Science of Light (Germany) and the company Microfluidic ChipShop, also from Germany.