A lab-on-a-chip for characterising and sorting cancer cells

目前，英国每三分钟就有超过一人死于癌症，即每天超过440人，即每年超过162，000人。新的癌症病例预计将从2007年的每年约298，000例上升到2030年的432，000例-仅在英国就增加了45%。这一增长几乎完全是由于生活在英国的人数预期增加和人口老龄化。癌症相关死亡率的主要原因是肿瘤转移。在它们生长的某个时候，实体瘤开始将肿瘤细胞脱落到血液中。这些细胞被称为循环肿瘤细胞（CTC），它们被认为是通过血流传播到转移部位的种子。CTC也被视为替代品，允许医生确定治疗过程并观察癌症如何演变。CTC表达相当大的标志物表达异质性，其最近被认为是对系统治疗的抗性机制。该项目旨在通过开发集成微波、超声和微流控技术的下一代芯片实验室来揭示单个CTC的特性，该芯片实验室将对单个CTC进行表征，并为后续分析提供实时和无标记的信息。芯片实验室将测量单个CTC的介电特性，从而将细胞形态、增殖、代谢、细胞骨架、活力、和细胞质。该项目将开发一种混合设备，以促进监测癌症进展和治疗效果，并揭示CTC的组成，以解决特定的突变和表型改变，这将作为了解CTC在转移中行为的第一步。

At present, more than one person dies from cancer every three minutes in the UK, or more than 440 per day, or more than 162,000 per annum. The projection of new cancer cases rises from about 298,000 per annum in 2007, to 432,000 by 2030 - an increase of 45% in the UK alone. The rise is explained almost entirely by the expected increase in the number of people living in the UK and the ageing population.The dominant cause of cancer-associated mortality is tumour metastasis. At some point in their growth, solid tumours start to shed tumour cells into the bloodstream. These cells are called circulating tumour cells (CTCs), which have been considered as seeds spreading through the bloodstream to metastatic sites. CTCs are also treated as surrogates allowing doctors to determine the course of therapy and watch how a cancer evolves. CTCs express considerable marker expression heterogeneity which has been recently recognised as a mechanism of resistance to systematic therapy. This project aims to reveal the characterisation of single CTCs by developing next generation lab-on-a-chip integrating microwave, ultrasonic and microfluidic technologies, which will characterise single CTCs and provide their real-time and label-free information for subsequent analyses.The lab-on-a-chip will measure the dielectric properties of single CTCs, allowing the association to cellular morphology, proliferation, metabolism, cytoskeleton, viability, and cytoplasm. This project will develop a hybrid device to facilitate monitoring the cancer progression and treatment effectiveness, and reveal the makeup of CTCs to address specific mutations and phenotypic alterations, which will act as the first step to understand CTCs' behaviours in metastasis.