Is lung cancer treatment working? This chip can tell from a blood draw

By trapping tiny numbers of cancer cells from blood , the device can identify whether treatment is working at the four week mark

3:20 PM

Author | Derek Smith

Gloved hands holding silicone chips used in cancer research
Part of the GO chip manufacturing process takes place in Nagrath’s lab. They start with silicon wafers, on which a tight array of gold dots have been etched into a rectangle pattern at the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. The gold attracts the graphene oxide frame, which is added with more chemical steps in the lab. Further chemical processing attaches the antibodies to microscopically thin sheets of graphene oxide. These antibodies are what allow the chips to trap cancer cells. Credit: Brenda Ahearn, Michigan Engineering.

Using a chip to process blood samples, doctors can monitor the amount of cancer cells in a patient’s blood to determine how well a treatment is working by the fourth week, according to a new study published in Cell Reports this week by University of Michigan researchers.

Such data could allow clinicians to adapt cancer treatments to patients’ needs and improve treatment outcomes.

“Currently, there’s typically a wait of weeks to months before we can fully assess the effectiveness of cancer treatment,” said Shruti Jolly, M.D., professor of radiation oncology and associate chair of community practices in the Department of Radiation Oncology at University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center, and a co-corresponding author of the study.

“However, with this chip, we may be able to sidestep prolonged, ineffective therapy and quickly pivot to alternatives, thus saving patients from needless side effects. said Jolly, who is also the chief clinical strategy officer for cancer services at U-M Health.

“This technique has the potential to shift cancer diagnostics, moving from a delayed single assessment to a more continuous surveillance and facilitating the delivery of personalized cancer treatment,” 

Liquid biopsies

Today, clinicians use CT scans to see if a tumor shrank or grew, but only large changes in size are easily noticed. Tumor biopsies provide more exact information, but they can’t be done frequently enough to get regular updates.

That’s why many clinicians are turning to liquid biopsies, or tests that look for signs of cancer in the patient’s blood, such as cancer cells that tumors have shed. Blood samples can be collected frequently, but they are only useful if the cells are present in high enough levels for biomedical instruments to detect. 

With this chip, we may be able to sidestep prolonged, ineffective therapy and quickly pivot to alternatives, thus saving patients from needless side effects. This technique has the potential to shift cancer diagnostics."

--Shruti Jolly, M.D.

Lung cancer is a particular problem. Other FDA approved tools for detecting cancer cells in blood samples have proven ineffective for monitoring lung cancer treatments—likely because they targeted a single protein on the cells’ surfaces that is less common in lung cancers, the researchers say.

“We were looking for more sensitive markers of cancer that we could use to closely monitor treatments,” said Sunitha Nagrath, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering and one of the study’s corresponding authors.

“In some cases, only about half of cancer patients respond to the treatments, leaving the rest with poor outcomes,” said Nagrath, who is also co-director of Liquid Biopsy Shared Resources for the Rogel Cancer Center.

“Treatments may also be expensive and cause adverse reactions in some patients, so it’s important for clinicians to know early on whether a treatment is going to be effective—or whether they may be better off with a different treatment.”

Trapping cancer cells

The “GO chip” developed by Nagrath’s team, first demonstrated in 2013, succeeded where others fell short. It traps cancer cells like a piece of flypaper traps flies. But unlike fly paper, the chip only catches its target. Antibodies mounted on microscopically thin sheets of graphene oxide in the chip—which give the device its name—recognize a wide array of cancer specific protein markers found on the surfaces of cancer cells.

As the blood is pushed through channels in the chip, the antibodies trap cells, eventually concentrating enough to work with. With the cells locked in place, the researchers can not only count them but confirm that they are indeed cancerous and determine how the cells’ biochemistry varies between patients and treatment stages.

To test that the GO chip could monitor lung cancer treatments, the researchers used it to collect cancer cells from the blood of 26 patients receiving both chemo- and immunotherapy for stage III lung cancer. The researchers took samples before cancer treatment and after the patients’ first, fourth, tenth, 18th and 30th weeks of treatment.

Targets for future therapies

Their experiment revealed that when the number of cancer cells in a patient’s blood doesn’t decrease by at least 75% by the fourth week of treatment, their cancer is more likely to persist after treatment. The study also showed that cancer cells collected from patients whose cancer did not respond to treatment had activated genes that may have made the cancer resilient. These genes might be good targets for future cancer therapies, but further study is required to test this idea.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The GO chips were built in the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility


More Articles About: Cancer (Oncology) Rogel Cancer Center Radiation Oncology lung cancer Cancer Diagnosis
Health Lab word mark overlaying blue cells
Health Lab

Explore a variety of health care news & stories by visiting the Health Lab home page for more articles.

Media Contact Public Relations

Department of Communication at Michigan Medicine

[email protected]

734-764-2220

Stay Informed

Want top health & research news weekly? Sign up for Health Lab’s newsletters today!

Subscribe
Featured News & Stories little girl smiling on left and on right wearing pink glasses
Health Lab
3-year-old back to cheerful self following complex surgery for rare aggressive chest tumor
A young girl gets back to her childhood after a 3D printed replica of her tumor helps her Michigan Medicine surgical team perform a successful operation.
News Release
Blevins Brothers Fortnite Charity Event at Michigan Stadium Raises Over $90,000 for Cancer Research
Ninja and BeardedBlevins helped raise $93,125 for the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center by streaming on Twitch from the Big House.
doctor talking to patient below in light grey light blue
Health Lab
Researchers develop enhanced communication framework for cancer clinics
Researchers have proposed an enhanced model of communication focusing not only on what is said in the clinic, but also nonverbal communication of the doctor and how doctors in turn interpret patients’ nonverbal cues. 
blue purple cell dots on white background all over in different patterns
Health Lab
Research finds possible therapies to target oncogenic transcription factors in multiple cancer types
A study from the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center furthers research that suggests the potential of developing new cancer treatments to target oncogenic transcription factors by indirectly affecting their ability to access enhancer DNA in chromatin.
two women, one older one younger, looking concerned listening to a provider across from them with back to camera
Health Lab
Many breast cancer survivors don't receive genetic testing, despite being eligible
As cancer treatment and survivorship care relies more on understanding the genetic make up of an individual’s tumor, a study from the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center finds that many breast cancer survivors who meet criteria for genetic counseling and testing are not receiving it.
Cancer cell microscopic, colored yellow
Health Lab
Researchers find common immune system mechanism between pregnancy, cancer
Researchers find common immune system mechanism between pregnancy, cancer