SCANCER · Specialized cantilevers for cancer research
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2010-03-01 → 2014-05-19
- EU contribution
- €263,297
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IOF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Specialized cantilevers for cancer research
For centuries, medical doctors have used palpation exploration as a part of their examination to detect lumps or masses. This is used to feel the texture of a patient’s tissue, gauge its stiffness or reaction to the applied pressure. When parts are detected with a distinct stiffness that is often flagged as an early warning sign for disease. Similarly, many different methods have successfully been used to determine the mechanical properties of cells and even link them to many different diseases. The measurement of cellular or tissue stiffness consists in essence of two parts: a force that is applied to the cell/tissue and the deformation that such force causes is measured. By relating these two parameters, one can estimate the stiffness. AFM is one of the tools that are typically used to perform these measurements in a very reliable and accurate fashion. Nevertheless, this technique has important drawbacks in terms of complexity, fragility and difficulty together with a very low throughput. This project, SCANCER (Specialized cantilevers for cancer research), has aimed to ease AFM spectroscopy technique on single cells by developing specialized SU-8 probes. SU-8 has a low Young’s modulus achieving lower spring constants to the levers with thicker structures for better stability in liquid; the tip geometry is easily tunable to be less sharp, beneficial for a more gentle contact with the cells; and SU-8 provides a cost-effective fabrication. SCANCER has also explored the capability of the SU-8 probes coated with graphene for fundamental research on graphene interactions with cells and opening the possibility of new functionalization and electrical measurements together with a longer preservation of the tip geometry. SCANCER also has aimed to increase throughput by using 2-dimensional (2D) probe arrays on a homemade interferometric AFM system. By performing the measurement of multiple cells in parallel, stronger statistics can be obtained in the same amount of time. This work demonstrates that parallel force spectroscopy is a valid approach to significantly make an improvement in the field of cancer research by means of faster acquisition of elasticity data.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Research in the mechanical properties of cells will help to develop novel techniques and methods to complement traditional methods of cancer detection and means to evaluate the efficiency of cancer drugs. The objective of this project is to achieve significant advances in such field using specific cantilevers with customized geometries, added functionalities and engineered tips. More concretely, the tip shapes will be chosen in order to increase the contact area and therefore increasing the signal to noise ratio at the moment of the indentation; the geometries of the levers (top-view design) will be improved in order to minimize the damping; and finally a self actuation mechanism will be integrated in the levers in order to minimize the fluid vibrations and therefore the noise. Finally the fabrication and use of arrays of optimized probes is planned aiming the increase of the data acquisition rate, which will enable statistical studies to consolidate the technique and the possibility of the commercialization of the prototypes All the improvements planned for the project are expected to help the development of instruments and methods to ultimately characterize cancer cells in vivo, which is the major goal within cancer detection research. The presented proposal describes an ambitious project in a crucial topic. It will start with a very basic research on cell-studies and characterization with single AFM probes and it will finish with the use of multiple probes in parallel to validate the technique. The synergies between the outgoing and return organizations and the matching of the applicant profile with the research program are optimum for a successful development of the project.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CSEM CENTRE SUISSE D'ELECTRONIQUE ET DE MICROTECHNIQUE SA - RECHERCHE ET DEVELOPPEMENT · NeuchatelCoordinatorSwitzerland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union