The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research has granted more than €300,000 to a new research initiative, the ‘Magnetic Flow Cytometry (MRCyte)’ project, at the Mainz University Medical Center.
Professor Dr. Roland Stauber from the Mainz University Medical Center is the Manager of the project that aims at detecting detached tumor cells in patients for early cancer detection. Recent reports suggest that detection of these dispersed cancer cells will be helpful in determining cancer at its early stage.
In this project, Stauber’s team and other industrial and academic partners will develop a technique using nanotechnology and hard drive technology principles to detect these rare cells. This innovative method enables the concentration of these dispersed cancer cells in patients’ blood by using nanoparticle-based magnetic flow cytometry and hard drive read head detection technology.
Dr. Reinhard Urban, Scientific Director at the Mainz University Medical Center, stated that the technique used in the MRCyte joint project is highly advanced and paves the way to develop future treatment concepts. However, more research is required before applying the technique on patients because cancer cells differ greatly from their ‘sister’ cells by means of composition, size, and appearance. This increases the complexity to reliably determine the dispersed cancer cells.
Stauber stated that the team has gained knowledge and advanced technologies from its earlier project sponsored by the Rhineland-Palatinate Trust for Innovation and hence it can handle these challenges to optimize care procedures for patients. Hence, the funding will be helpful in executing novel projects that have high practical relevance.
Source: http://www.uni-mainz.de