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New nanotech to catch cancer early

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    You have cancer.
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    Sadly, about 40 percent of us will hear
    those three words within our lifetime,
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    and half will not survive.
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    This means that two of five
    of your closest friends and relatives
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    will be diagnosed
    with some form of cancer,
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    and one will die.
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    Beyond the physical harships,
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    roughly one-third of cancer
    survivors here in the US
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    will go into debt from treatment.
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    And they're at least two-and-a-half times
    more likely to declare bankruptcy
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    than those without cancer.
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    This disease is pervasive.
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    It's emotionally drainging,
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    and for many,
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    financially destructive.
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    But a cancer diagnosis doesn't
    have to be a death sentence.
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    Finding cancer early,
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    closer its genesis,
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    is one of the critical factors
    to improving treatment options,
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    reducing its emotional impact
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    and minimizing financial burdens.
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    Most importantly,
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    finding cancer early --
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    which is one of the primary
    aims of my research --
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    greatly enhances your odds of survival.
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    If we just look at the case
    of breast cancer for example,
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    we find that those who are diagnosed
    and treated as Stage One
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    have a five-year survival rate
    of nearly 100 percent.
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    Odds that decrease to just 22 percent
    if treated at Stage Four.
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    And similar trends are found
    for cholorectal and ovarian cancer.
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    Now, we're all aware that an early
    diagnosis that is accurate
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    is critical for survival.
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    The problem is that many cancer
    diagnostic tools are invasive,
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    costly,
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    often inaccurate,
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    and they can take an agonizing amount
    of time to get the results back.
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    Still worse,
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    when it comes to some forms of cancer,
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    such as ovarian, liver
    or pancreatic cancer,
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    good screening methods simply don't exist,
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    meaning often people wait until
    physical symptoms surface,
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    which are themselves already indicators
    of late stage progression.
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    Like a tornado strike in an area
    without an early warning system,
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    there is no alarm to warn
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    for the danger is already
    at your doorstep ...
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    when your odds of survival
    are greatly reduced.
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    Having the convenience and accessibility
    of regular screening options
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    that are affordable, noninvasive
    and could provide results much sooner,
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    would provide us with a formidable
    weapon in the fight against cancer.
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    An early warning would allow us
    to get out ahead of the disease
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    instead of merely following
    in its relentless wake.
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    And this is exactly what I've been doing.
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    For the past three years,
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    I've been developing technologies
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    that could ultimately aid clinicians
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    with rapid, early-stage
    cancer diagnostics.
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    And I've been fueled by a deep
    scientific curiosity,
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    and a passion to change these statistics.
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    Last year however,
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    this fight became much more personal
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    when my wife was diagnosed
    with breast cancer.
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    It was an experience that added a strong
    and unexpected emotional dimension
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    to these efforts.
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    I know firsthand how life-altering
    treatment can be,
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    and I'm keenly aware
    of the emotional havoc
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    that cancer and wreak on a family,
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    which in our case included
    our two young daughters.
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    Because we found it early
    during a routine mamogram,
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    we were able to focus primarly
    on treatment options
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    for the localized tumor,
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    reaffirming to me how important
    an early diagnosis is.
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    Unlike other forms of cancer,
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    mamograms do offer an early stage
    screening option for breast cancer.
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    Still, not everyone has this done,
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    or they may develop cancer before
    the middle age recommendation
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    for having a mamogram.
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    So, there's still a lot
    of room for improvement,
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    even for cancers that do
    have screening options.
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    And of course,
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    considerable benefits
    for those that don't.
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    A key challenge then
    for cancer researchers
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    is to develop methods
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    that make regular screening for many
    types of cancers much more accessible.
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    Imagine a scenario where during
    your regular checkup,
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    your doctor can take a simple,
    noninvasive urine sample,
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    or other liquid biopsy,
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    and present you with the results
    before you even leave the doctor's office.
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    Such a technology could dramatically
    reduce the number of people
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    who slipped through the net
    of an early stage cancer diagnosis.
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    My research team
    of engineers and biochemists
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    is working on exactly this challenge.
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    We're working on ways to frequently
    activate an early stage cancer alarm
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    by enable regular screenings that would
    start when a person is healthy
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    so that action could be taken to stop
    cancer the moment it emerges,
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    and before it can progress
    beyond its infancy.
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    The silver bullet in this case
    are tiny [vesacilles],
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    little escape pods regularly shed
    by cells called [exosomes].
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    Exosomes are important biomarkers
    that provide an early warning system
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    for the development of cancer.
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    And because they're abundantly present
    in just about every bodily fluid,
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    including blood, urine and saliva,
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    they're extremely attractive
    for noninvasive, liquid biopsies.
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    There's just one problem.
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    And automated system for rapidly sorting
    these important biomarkers
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    is not currently available.
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    We've created a technology
    that we call "Nano DOD"
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    that is capable of precisely this.
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    Automated exome isolation
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    to aid rapid cancer diagnostics.
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    Exosomes are the newest early
    warning weapon if you will
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    to emerge on the liquid biopsy front.
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    And they're really, really small.
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    They measure just 30 to 150
    nanometers in diameter.
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    This is so tiny
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    that you could fit about a million
    of them into a single red blood cell.
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    That's roughly the difference
    between a golf ball
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    and a fine grain piece of sand.
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    Once thought to be little bins
    for unwanted cellular waste,
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    it has been found that cells
    actually communicate
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    by producing and absorbing these exosomes
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    which contain surface receptors,
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    proteins
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    and other genetic material collected
    from their cell of origin.
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    When absorbed by a neighboring cell,
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    exosomes release their contents
    into the receiving cell,
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    and can set in motion fundamental
    changes in gene expression.
Title:
New nanotech to catch cancer early
Speaker:
Joshua Smith
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
12:26

English subtitles

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