Eat a yogurt, detect colon cancer. It seems too simple — impossible, even — like something from a sci-fi movie. But that’s the technology that’s currently being developed by MIT Professor Sangeeta Bhatia.
Bhatia’s invention, according to MIT News, may, in the future, replace or augment MRIs and uncomfortable colonoscopies as methods of detecting colorectal cancer. The yogurt contains nanoparticles coated with peptides that, once introduced to the body, find their way to tumors within the digestive system. These nanoparticles react with protein enzymes produced by cancer cells, breaking down the introduced particles into small enough pieces to be processed by the kidneys and detected in urine.
There wouldn’t even be a need to get a lab urinalysis, because Bhatia’s thought of everything to make the cancer detection process as easy as possible. She’s invented a paper urine test similar to a pregnancy test. Lines on the paper would become visible if biomarkers from the nanoparticles were detected in urine.
Bhatia, trained as both a doctor and as an engineer, has been a professor at MIT since 2005, working in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, as well as the Division of Health Sciences and Technology. She specializes in using nanotechnology to benefit human health. Bhatia directs the Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies at MIT and is the co-founder of the Medford-based Heprengen Corporation, which seeks to commercialize the micro-liver she developed.
In September, Bhatia received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for her world-changing inventions, particularly the development of said micro-liver that can be used to study the workings of the human liver in a lab setting.
One in 2o people in the U.S. will develop colorectal cancer at some point in their lives, according to the American Cancer Society, and only 40 percent of cases are diagnosed early. Part of the problem with early diagnosis may be that the traditional methods of detecting colorectal cancer — MRI scans and colonoscopies — are both expensive and uncomfortable.
Eating a yogurt and carrying out a simple paper urine diagnostic test, however, would be a lot easier and more comfortable.
The cancer-detecting yogurt and paper-urine test combo wasn’t invented with only first-world users in mind, though. Because the test should be fairly cheap and won’t require expensive medical equipment or well-trained personnel, it will be extraordinarily useful in developing countries, where 70 percent of all cancer deaths occur and screenings aren’t widely available.
Despite the exciting possibilities of the invention, it may take a while before there’s a comfortable alternative to colonoscopies. Right now, the synthetic biomarkers have only been tested on mice in a lab setting. But they’re working — scientists have detected both colorectal cancer and liver fibrosis with the invention.
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