Sydney, oct. 24 2021 – researchers at le drobo university in australia recently published a paper in the british journal nature, saying they have developed a new type of microscope slide using nanotechnology to transform traditional microscope slides to identify cancerous cells more quickly and accurately.
the paper’s first author, professor brian abe of le drobo university, told news agency that traditional microscope slides are simple cell carriers that need to be dyed or labeled when detected, but because the number of cancer cells is small in the early stages of cancer, conventional methods make it difficult for pathologists to pinpoint which cells have become cancerous in a large number of healthy cells, so it is easy to misdiagnose and delay treatment.
using nanotechnology, the team modified the surface of the slides to a nanoscale, allowing researchers to manipulate the interaction of light with cellular tissue, and cancerous cells directly exhibit different colors from healthy cells, with greater detection efficiency and accuracy.
the research team is currently working with the peter mccallum cancer center to test the new slide to help diagnose early-stage breast cancer. the researchers hope the technology will be a useful complement to existing tissue imaging methods and could be used in early detection of more cancers.