Biochip for the early detection of cancer

The Innsbruck Biocentre, led by Professor Lukas Huber, is involved in a major European research project. This involves the development of a 'biological interface' for a new semiconductor developed by Siemens.

Lukas Huber (6th from the right), director of the Innsbruck Biocentre, with...
Lukas Huber (6th from the right), director of the Innsbruck Biocentre, with project partners from Germany, Finland, Sweden and Great Britain

The objective is to develop a chip that will be able to take numerous medical-diagnostic measurements simultaneously. This works by electronically recording and evaluating changes in the chip’s frequency patterns. Certain proteins, or DNA-sequences, are fixed onto the sensor area of the chip, which, when coming into contact with other proteins (via a drop of blood, for example) cause changes in the frequency pattern. To put it simply, these reactions could be detected and immediately evaluated through a special reader.

The researchers hope to extract a multitude of information from just a single drop of blood or serum, which could revolutionise the diagnoses of complex diseases, such as certain types of cancer.

With their Innsbruck research team, Prof. Huber and Prof. M Widschwendter are concentrating on the proteins and DNA-sequences, as well as on the development of the relevant markers, which, once fixed to the chip, will deliver that information. Researchers at the Technical Research Centre VIT, in Helsinki, are working on a process to chemically fix the DNA-strings from Austria to the measuring field. The test models finally will end up at Siemens, in Munich, where the new semiconductor-technology is being further refined. Other partners in the project, for which the EU has provided subsidies totalling Ä3.8 million until 2008, are based in Great Britain and Sweden.

01.05.2006

More on the subject:More on companies:

Related articles

Photo

Sponsored • Earlier disease prediction and identification

The potential of AI in routine blood testing

It’s widely known that more than 70% of today’s medical decisions involve the results of laboratory tests, but the insights clinicians derive from these tests today may only be scratching the…

Photo

Sponsored • Siemens Naeotom Alpha

First CT scanner with photon-counting technology

Conventional CT imaging has reached its technical limitations: Resolution can only be improved by small margins and dose cannot be reduced significantly: Photon-counting technology enables drastic…

Photo

Sponsored • Photon-counting CT scanner

No detours, more detail

For the Siemens Healthineers team developing new and ever higher performing computed tomographs is daily fare. But when they introduced their most recent CT system an unusual sense of pride was…

Related products

Subscribe to Newsletter