Scientists recently reported that a device uses tiny worms to detect cancer cells. Specifically, this "worm-on-a-chip" could someday help medical practitioners noninvasively diagnose cancer at its initial stage.

Figure 1. A “worm-on-a-chip” device tracks nematodes' toward odor produced by lung

At one end of the chip, they added one drop of culture media from lung cancer cells, and on the other end, the researchers added media from normal lung fibroblasts.

As specified in a report from EurekAlert! dogs can use their "incredible sense of smell" to sniff out different cancer forms in human breath, urine, and blood samples.[1]

Lung cancer cells produce a different set of odor molecules than normal cells. It’s well known that the soil-dwelling nematode, C. elegans, is attracted or repelled by certain odors, so we came up with an idea that the roundworm could be used to detect lung cancer.

Other researchers have placed nematodes in petri dishes and added drops of human urine, observing that the worms preferentially crawled toward urine samples from cancer patients.[2]

The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Early diagnosis of cancer is critical for effective treatment and survival, says Nari Jang, a graduate student who is presenting the work at the meeting. Therefore, cancer screening methods should be quick, easy, economical, and non-invasive.

Currently, doctors diagnose lung cancer by imaging tests or biopsies, but these methods often can't detect tumours at their earliest stages. Although dogs can be trained to sniff out human cancer, they aren't practical to keep in labs.

So, Jang and Shin Sik Choi, Ph.D., the project's principal investigator, decided to use worms called nematodes, which are tiny (~1 mm in length), easy to grow in the lab and have an extraordinary sense of smell, to develop a non-invasive cancer diagnostic test.

"We will collaborate with medical doctors to find out whether our methods can detect lung cancer in patients at an early stage," Choi says. They also plan to test the device on multiple forms of cancer.[3]

References:

1. https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/36704/20220321/lung-cancer-diagnosis-researchers-develop-device-using-tiny-worms-will.htm
2. https://mixpoint.in/breaking-news/2022/03/worm-on-a-chip-device-could-someday-help-diagnose-lung-cancer/
3. https://phys.org/news/2022-03-worm-on-a-chip-device-lung-cancer.html

Cite this article:

Sri Vasagi K (2022), Tiny Worms Will Help to Detect the Deadly Disease in future, Anatechmaz, pp. 42