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Iranian develops biochip that identifies cancerous cells

Saturday, 19 December 2015 2:41 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 19 December 2015 5:09 PM ]

Iranian scientist Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani is interviewed by PressTV.

A young Iranian scientist has made a revolutionary breakthrough in treating cancer, developing a device which can increase the life expectancy of those diagnosed with cancer, PressTV reports.

Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, 32, whose has done his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, has been working on a biochip for the past four years that is capable of cleansing the blood of patients from cancer cells.

The biochip filters the blood to identify and then remove cancer cells, in a system the team in Australia’s University of New South Wales, where Warkiani is currently working, calls “dialysis for cancer.”

He said in an exclusive interview with PressTV that he and his team have produced a device that enables patients “to do a simple blood test and isolate these [tumor] cells for detection and diagnosis purposes.”

At present, a scan and then a biopsy identifies a tumor in a body. However, solid cancers shed circulating tumor cells into the bloodstream, causing the cancer to metastasize or spread through the body.

According to Warkiani, cancer cells are different from healthy ones in their morphology and size and the biochip he has developed is capable of differentiating and separating cancerous cells in the blood.

He added that the method can also extend the life expectancy of cancer patients in their very late stages as it can “reduce the tumor burden from their body.”

In case of patients who are at the early or middle stages of cancer, the system can act as a complementary treatment in addition to radiotherapy or chemotherapy, Warkiani said, adding that it decreases the chance of the relapse of cancer.

The 32-year-old also stated that the major obstacle in way of pushing forward with the revolutionary project is funding as the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) have refused to fund it.

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