Liquid Biopsy for Circulating Tumor Cells for $30
January 17, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
That’ll be the day when a life-saving, minimally invasive diagnostic for metastatic cancer costs $30. But that, at least, is what the test device actually costs. Stanford University hematologists have designed a microarray device called the “MagSifter.” It has 25,600 wells, each holding a single cell captured from circulating blood using antibody labels and magnetic nanoparticles for separation. Testing the array takes five hours, compared to the surgical lung biopsy that might take three weeks to return results and costs $18,000. Certainly, the MagSifter comes into diagnostics where there’s lots of room for improvement. MORE
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