FEATURE
Space Technology Could Help Early Detection of Breast Cancer
Using the same instrument to detect life on Mars and cancer lurking inside the human body isn’t as far-fetched as one might think. Just ask Goddard technologist Stephanie Getty. She is now developing a technology platform that might be able to do both.
Under a grant with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Getty is collaborating with the University of Maryland, Catholic University, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop a nano-scale detector that would locate specific biomarkers linked to breast cancer. |
Technologist Stephanie Getty is applying spaceflight technology to develop a platform that might be able to detect breast cancer.
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The hope is that the NanoBioSensor Initiative will result in an instrument that physicians could use in a clinical setting to detect the presence of cancer biomarkers or predict the prognosis of a patient developing the disease.
Could Also Detect Organic Molecules
Getty, who joined the Center nearly five years ago to pursue nano-technologies for spaceflight applications, also is receiving Goddard Internal Research and Development funding to advance her instrument concept. The same detector technology, which she calls ChemFET, could be used to detect organic molecules that may indicate the presence of past or current life on Mars, Titan, and other solar system objects.
NASA also might be able to use a modified version of the technology to detect specific genetic sequences to assure that terrestrial organisms have not contaminated samples collected on Mars or the Moon or to screen astronauts for cancer due to over-exposure to the Sun’s harmful radiation during long-term stays on the Moon, Getty said. “This is a unique opportunity to leverage funding,” Getty said. “It really is a dual-use technology.”
But even Getty concedes that due to the long-range nature of NASA’s exploration initiatives, it may take years before her instrument concept actually flies in space. That’s why she pursued other funding avenues to help advance her ChemFET platform, she said.
Winning NIH Funding Fortuitous
Winning an NIH grant to help fund her work, she said, was fortuitous, a matter of being in the right place at the right time. “Actually, I was trying to find clean room space” when she met Robert Rashford, a systems engineer with the James Webb Space Telescope project, she said.
During a conversation with him, she discovered that he knew an NCI researcher who was interested in developing a miniaturized diagnostic tool that would replace an existing approach called DNA microarray technology, which allows scientists to examine thousands of genes at a time to study patterns of activity in cells.
Some people have a greater chance of developing certain types of cancer if a mutation occurs in specific genes. The presence of such a change is sometimes called a risk marker, indicating that cancer is more likely to occur. Tumor markers, on the other hand, are substances produced by tumor cells and are found in blood, urine, and tumor tissue. To date, researchers have identified more than a dozen substances that express abnormally when some types of cancer are present. Breast cancer is one.
ChemFET Offers Viable Solution
Although DNA microarray technology is a powerful tool for identifying the presence of these biomarkers, the technique is currently confined to research laboratories due to time-consuming sample preparation, intensive data analysis, and cost, Getty said. ChemFET, however, offers a viable solution to the cancer-detection challenge because it uses nano-components and a fully electronic detection method. Both are compatible with miniaturization and rapid data analysis.
“We have proved the concept,” she said. “Now we need to make it easy for a company to manufacture it. The point is we want to create a tool so that anyone could come into a clinic to be tested for breast cancer more rapidly.” |
