New nanotech to catch cancer early

You have cancer.

Sadly, about 40 percent of us will hear
those three words within our lifetime,

and half will not survive.

This means that two of five
of your closest friends and relatives

will be diagnosed
with some form of cancer,

and one will die.

Beyond the physical harships,

roughly one-third of cancer
survivors here in the US

will go into debt from treatment.

And they're at least two-and-a-half times
more likely to declare bankruptcy

than those without cancer.

This disease is pervasive.

It's emotionally drainging,

and for many,

financially destructive.

But a cancer diagnosis doesn't
have to be a death sentence.

Finding cancer early,

closer its genesis,

is one of the critical factors
to improving treatment options,

reducing its emotional impact

and minimizing financial burdens.

Most importantly,

finding cancer early --

which is one of the primary
aims of my research --

greatly enhances your odds of survival.

If we just look at the case
of breast cancer for example,

we find that those who are diagnosed
and treated as Stage One

have a five-year survival rate
of nearly 100 percent.

Odds that decrease to just 22 percent
if treated at Stage Four.

And similar trends are found
for cholorectal and ovarian cancer.

Now, we're all aware that an early
diagnosis that is accurate

is critical for survival.

The problem is that many cancer
diagnostic tools are invasive,

costly,

often inaccurate,

and they can take an agonizing amount
of time to get the results back.

Still worse,

when it comes to some forms of cancer,

such as ovarian, liver
or pancreatic cancer,

good screening methods simply don't exist,

meaning often people wait until
physical symptoms surface,

which are themselves already indicators
of late stage progression.

Like a tornado strike in an area
without an early warning system,

there is no alarm to warn

for the danger is already
at your doorstep ...

when your odds of survival
are greatly reduced.

Having the convenience and accessibility
of regular screening options

that are affordable, noninvasive
and could provide results much sooner,

would provide us with a formidable
weapon in the fight against cancer.

An early warning would allow us
to get out ahead of the disease

instead of merely following
in its relentless wake.

And this is exactly what I've been doing.

For the past three years,

I've been developing technologies

that could ultimately aid clinicians

with rapid, early-stage
cancer diagnostics.

And I've been fueled by a deep
scientific curiosity,

and a passion to change these statistics.

Last year however,

this fight became much more personal

when my wife was diagnosed
with breast cancer.

It was an experience that added a strong
and unexpected emotional dimension

to these efforts.

I know firsthand how life-altering
treatment can be,

and I'm keenly aware
of the emotional havoc

that cancer and wreak on a family,

which in our case included
our two young daughters.

Because we found it early
during a routine mamogram,

we were able to focus primarly
on treatment options

for the localized tumor,

reaffirming to me how important
an early diagnosis is.

Unlike other forms of cancer,

mamograms do offer an early stage
screening option for breast cancer.

Still, not everyone has this done,

or they may develop cancer before
the middle age recommendation

for having a mamogram.

So, there's still a lot
of room for improvement,

even for cancers that do
have screening options.

And of course,

considerable benefits
for those that don't.

A key challenge then
for cancer researchers

is to develop methods

that make regular screening for many
types of cancers much more accessible.

Imagine a scenario where during
your regular checkup,

your doctor can take a simple,
noninvasive urine sample,

or other liquid biopsy,

and present you with the results
before you even leave the doctor's office.

Such a technology could dramatically
reduce the number of people

who slipped through the net
of an early stage cancer diagnosis.

My research team
of engineers and biochemists

is working on exactly this challenge.

We're working on ways to frequently
activate an early stage cancer alarm

by enable regular screenings that would
start when a person is healthy

so that action could be taken to stop
cancer the moment it emerges,

and before it can progress
beyond its infancy.

The silver bullet in this case
are tiny [vesacilles],

little escape pods regularly shed
by cells called [exosomes].

Exosomes are important biomarkers
that provide an early warning system

for the development of cancer.

And because they're abundantly present
in just about every bodily fluid,

including blood, urine and saliva,

they're extremely attractive
for noninvasive, liquid biopsies.

There's just one problem.

And automated system for rapidly sorting
these important biomarkers

is not currently available.

We've created a technology
that we call "Nano DOD"

that is capable of precisely this.

Automated exome isolation

to aid rapid cancer diagnostics.

Exosomes are the newest early
warning weapon if you will

to emerge on the liquid biopsy front.

And they're really, really small.

They measure just 30 to 150
nanometers in diameter.

This is so tiny

that you could fit about a million
of them into a single red blood cell.

That's roughly the difference
between a golf ball

and a fine grain piece of sand.

Once thought to be little bins
for unwanted cellular waste,

it has been found that cells
actually communicate

by producing and absorbing these exosomes

which contain surface receptors,

proteins

and other genetic material collected
from their cell of origin.

When absorbed by a neighboring cell,

exosomes release their contents
into the receiving cell,

and can set in motion fundamental
changes in gene expression.