Point-of-care (POC) micro biochip for cancer diagnostics

Most of the cancers are curable if they are detected at early stages. The early stage detection of cancers can significantly improve the patient treatment outcomes and thus helps to decrease the. To achieve the early detection of the specific cancer, the biochip is incorporated with an innovative sensing mechanism and surface treated microchannels. The sensing mechanism employed in the Point of Care (POC) biochip is designed to be highly specific and sensitive. The surface treated microchannel helps to control the self-driven flow of the blood sample. Cancer antibodies with enhanced specificity and affinity are specially developed and immobilized on the surface of the nano circuit in microchannel. When the blood sample flows in the microchannel over the cancer antibodies, the corresponding cancer antigens from the blood forms the antigen-antibody complex. These antigen-antibody interactions are captured with the variation in the electrical properites of the gold nano circuit using the sening mechanism in the biochip. The point of care (POC) micro biochip is designed as an in-situ standalone device to diagnose the complex cancers like ovarian cancer at the early stages by sensing the cancer antigens in the blood sample with very low concentrations (to the level of femto scale) from the blood sample drawn from a finger prick. The POC biochip can help to diagnose, the existence of cancer and also its severity using the qualitative and the quantitative results of the sensing mehanism in the biochip. The intial experimental results of the POC biochip detected the cancer antigens (CA-125) at the nano level concentrations in the sample.