A touch-based microscope to detect cancer

Dear supporters and collaborators,

This is an update about the project results.

Our research team has succesfully developed a protocol for the imaging of cancer cells by AFM. We have already collected data from more than 10 patients of Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, plus we made various control measurements on cells from healthy individuals!!

Using our protocol, in only 1 hour we can test around 1 mm of a petri dish, providing +/- 40,000 data that define the mechanical properties of each patients' sample (30-40 cells). We are now using commercial and custom made scripts that perform batch processing of AFM data to extract different mechanical parameters of the cells (elasticity, adhesion) based on standard and non-standard analysis.

The exciting news is that we are able to distinguish two subtypes of the same cancer type (lung cancer) by their mechanical fingerprints. As the two cancers need different medical treatments, this is a big step towards cancer diagnostics by AFM!

We are now in the last stage of the cell analysis. A completely new data analysis routine based on machine learning is also currently under development by our collaborators from the Physics Department of UB. Thus, we will be able to screen the best procedure for the cell data data analysis, in terms of efficiency, fast and automatic character.

With all this information, we aim to wrap up a paper draft by the end of the year, thus fulfilling the rewards for all the supporters of the project (supporters name in paper and/or project report).

The preliminary results of the project have been presented in the NanoBio&Med Conference (Spain) and the AFM workshop in Italy.
Have a look to:
- https://phantomsfoundation.com/NANOBIOMED/2022/Abstracts/2022_Calo_Annalisa_24.pdf
- https://www.gambetti.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Abstract-Calo.pdf

May-June 2022 Crowdfunding period ------- Done!✓
July 2022 Development of the measurement protocol ------- Done!✓
January 2023 Data analysis ------- Ongoing!✓
September 2023 Paper writing, conference presentation ------- To do!

I will keep you updated about further progresses!