Cancer urine test

Earlier cancer diagnosis by detecting biomarkers in urine

Nanoparticles amplify tumor signals, making them much easier to detect

December 19, 2012

These nanoparticles created by MIT engineers can act as synthetic biomarkers for disease. The particles (brown) are coated with peptides (blue) that are cleaved by enzymes (green) found at the disease site. The peptides then accumulate in the urine, where they can be detected using mass spectrometry. (Credit: Justin H. Lo)

Specific proteins secreted by cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream could help diagnose cancer earlier, but the quantity of these biomarkers is so low that detecting them has proven difficult.

Now MIT researchers, led by Sangeeta Bhatia, have developed nanoparticles that interact with cancer proteins to produce thousands of biomarkers that can be easily detected in the patient’s urine.

This biomarker amplification system could also be used to monitor disease progression and track how tumors respond to treatment, says Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research./.../