Scientists from the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada ibs.GRANADA (Spain), the National University of San Luis (UNSL), and the Catholic University of Cuyo (UCCuyo), together with clinical surgeons from San Luis, are working on the development of a portable sensor with artificial intelligence that connects to a cell phone to detect tumor biomarkers of relevance in epithelial type cancers.
Research lines
From Spain, Dr. Francisco Gabriel Ortega Sánchez, researcher of the group A06-Clinical Oncology and Liquid Biopsy from ibs.GRANADA, works with circulating identification biomarkers that can mean an improvement in the diagnosis of patients and be useful for therapeutic monitoring. Currently, one of its lines of research is linked to cellular immunity: using a technique, liquid biopsy is applied and levels of cellular immunity against a pathogen, or autoimmunity against cells in the body, are identified.
When Ortega Sánchez's research group contacted the scientific team of Dr. Martín Fernández Baldo, from the UNSL, a new scientific line was created, linked to the development of portable and simple analytical methodologies that could be used to transfer the determination of biomarkers to the clinical practice, that is, to a more real hospital laboratory environment of the health service.
“The fact that they develop sensors, and that the control of these sensors is done by increasingly smaller (miniaturizable) equipment that can be connected to a telephone, makes us continue to advance in artificial intelligence,” Ortega Sánchez, told Argentina Investiga. graduated from UNSL and has lived in Spain for fifteen years.
Recently, a project led by Fernández Baldo obtained national funding to investigate, at the nanometric level, tumor biomarkers of clinical relevance. His scientific team develops intelligent nanomaterials that are used as a platform for immobilizing biomolecules (specific molecules that interact and recognize a biochemical biomarker). These, in turn, use another complex reagent (generally monoclonal antibodies) that, conjugated with some enzyme, allow a quantifiable product to be obtained.
“The interesting thing about this is to study, through Gabriel's group, which markers are prevalent in an early stage and develop the methodology to identify those specific markers in that early stage, whether breast, colorectal or prostate cancer. , which are the most common ones that we have been working on, and also some issues in lung cancer,” said the scientist.
Our Process
The idea is to diagnose the early stage of the disease. This will allow the doctor, through the clinic and by correlating imaging studies or other more complex ones performed on the patient, to make an accurate and early diagnosis, so the treatment will continue to evolve and be effective.
Regarding the portable sensor, the scientists explained that this application will be able to be handled by the doctor who is treating the patient, and also by the patient himself to perform self-monitoring. “The idea is to have biomarkers according to the type of cancer and each reactive strip will determine one biomarker at a time, that is, the sensor chip must be changed with the reactive strip and it will detect each of the biomarkers. that the doctor wants to test that particular patient,” they explained.
They added that an oncology patient is a person who must undergo permanent routine check-ups and if at any time a patient would like to have the device at home and be tested like glucose is tested, or any type of analysis through any type device, you can do it. “For some people it is difficult to go to a specialist oncologist when they live in a town far from big cities, so with this application and this small sensor it would be very simple,” explained Ortega Sánchez.
Scientific advances
The stages of advancement in technological development are named as TLR. Any technological development goes from TLR1 to TLR7. This development is in the TLR4 phase, that is, it is being developed in the study laboratory. “We now want to take it to a real environment, that is, to a hospital so that the doctor can start using it,” the researchers indicated.
Together with the scientists, doctors from San Luis who make up the surgery group at the Cerhu clinic have joined the project, from where specific samples are provided, both in diagnosed patients and those recently operated on, since for this study all stages are important. From the early stage to the postoperative stage. “Now we need a company to develop the sensors. To bring the technology to a more advanced state we will have to rely on international financing because it targets biotechnology companies,” they clarified.
Experts maintain that these developments improve people's life expectancy, the quality of life of a patient with tumor disease, and also lower the costs of treatments and diagnosis.
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