Cancer treatment tailor-made

The specially made device can be used to extract cancer cells from blood and grow them in the laboratory

Teams from NUS Engineering and the Mechanobiology Institute at NUS, led by NUS Society Professor and Acting Director of the Biomedical Institute for Global Health Research & Technology Professor Lim Chwee Teck, have developed tools that can offer a more personalised approach for cancer patients, increasing the efficiency and speed of the treatment.

One tool is a device that can extract cancer cells from about 7.5ml of blood, after which the cancer cells are grown in the device. Different combinations and types of drugs can then be injected into the cancer cells to determine the best solution for effective treatment.

A personalised risk assessment tool has also been developed. The researchers sifted through genetic data of tumours from more than 2,000 early-stage lung cancer patients, identifying 29 genes that could predict how well cancer patients will respond to treatment. By looking at the amount of these genes produced, the team was able to predict the survival outcomes of cancer patients.

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