Researchers at City of Hope\u00ae,\u00a0a\u00a0cancer research and treatment organization,\u00a0and the University of California, Berkeley,\u00a0have\u00a0created\u00a0a novel microfluidic platform that can assess women’s breast cancer risk\u00a0at the cellular level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first-of-its-kind platform squeezes individual breast epithelial cells, creating a taxing environment to measure how they deform,\u00a0recover\u00a0and behave under stress, according to a new study published today in Lancet’s\u00a0eBioMedicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because more than 90% of women lack a known genetic predisposition to or\u00a0a\u00a0family history of breast cancer, this innovative\u00a0approach could fill a critical gap in risk assessment\u00a0and\u00a0save countless lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“For women with a known genetic risk factor\u00a0for breast cancer, there are things you can do like follow a higher-risk screening protocol. For everybody else,\u00a0you’re\u00a0left wondering, ‘Am I at\u00a0high risk?'” said\u00a0Mark LaBarge, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Population Sciences at City of Hope. “By translating physical changes in cells into quantifiable data, this tool gives women something tangible to discuss with their doctors – not just risk estimates, but evidence drawn directly from their own cells.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Researchers\u00a0from the two institutions\u00a0developed a machine learning algorithm that\u00a0identifies\u00a0and\u00a0measures\u00a0cells that show signs of accelerated aging,\u00a0quantifying\u00a0an individual breast cancer risk score. Importantly, the\u00a0AI\u00a0platform uses simple electronics that would be easy and affordable to replicate on a large scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Our team isn’t the first to measure the mechanical properties of cells; however, other approaches require advanced imaging technology that’s expensive, cumbersome and has limited availability,”\u00a0said\u00a0Lydia Sohn, Ph.D., the Almy C.\u00a0Maynard\u00a0and Agnes Offield Maynard Chair in Mechanical Engineering at\u00a0UC\u00a0Berkeley.\u00a0“In contrast,\u00a0MechanoAge\u00a0uses\u00a0computer chips that are simpler than an Apple Watch and ‘Radio Shack parts’ that are cheap and easy to assemble, potentially making the device highly scalable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
About\u00a06% of women who develop breast cancer carry known genetic mutations. For women outside this group, risk is estimated indirectly based on population models or measurements like breast density. These\u00a0approaches can both overestimate and underestimate women’s individual breast cancer risk, leading to over-screening, under-screening,\u00a0unnecessary\u00a0worry\u00a0or missed warning signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently,\u00a0there is no non-genetic test\u00a0available\u00a0that can\u00a0identify\u00a0women at higher risk\u00a0for breast cancer. A downside to\u00a0screening mammograms\u00a0is that they can catch\u00a0cancer\u00a0only once\u00a0it\u00a0has begun to grow.\u00a0With the\u00a0MechanoAge\u00a0platform,\u00a0researchers\u00a0shifted the scientific lens\u00a0to\u00a0the cellular level, calculating\u00a0risk by looking for\u00a0physical\u00a0changes in individual cells.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Using the\u00a0innovative\u00a0platform, researchers uncovered\u00a0an unexpected\u00a0insight: breast cells appear to have a\u00a0“mechanical age”\u00a0separate from a person’s chronological age\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0by\u00a0how the cells physically respond to stress.\u00a0While\u00a0engineers\u00a0study the\u00a0aging of\u00a0materials such as\u00a0metals,\u00a0concrete\u00a0and polymers, this\u00a0is the first time\u00a0that\u00a0mechanical age\u00a0has been quantified in\u00a0biological cells. This fundamental scientific discovery\u00a0would not have been possible without\u00a0MechanoAge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We learned that the\u00a0older the mechanical age,\u00a0as determined by how cells respond to being squeezed through\u00a0our microfluidic device,\u00a0the higher the risk for breast cancer,”\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Sohn\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In\u00a0this type of\u00a0mechano-node-pore sensing,\u00a0an electrical current\u00a0is measured across a liquid-filled channel,\u00a0much like how\u00a0current is measured across a\u00a0wire.\u00a0As cells pass through, they disrupt the current, generating measurements about the cells’ size and shape. By making parts of the channel very narrow, researchers squeeze cells, then measure how long it takes each cell to recover its normal shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Machine-learning algorithms\u00a0developed by the researchers were then\u00a0used to\u00a0detect differences in cells from older and younger women. The\u00a0researchers\u00a0found that the physical properties of breast cells changed with age; cells from older women were stiffer and took longer to bounce back after being squeezed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then came a surprising finding: a subset of younger women had cells that behaved like they came from older women. These cells came from women with genetic mutations that put them at\u00a0high risk\u00a0of breast cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Researchers then refined the algorithm to assign a risk score based on all the\u00a0mechanical and physical\u00a0properties measured in the cells. This algorithm successfully\u00a0identified\u00a0women with known genetic risks.\u00a0Next the team used it to compare cells from healthy women,\u00a0women who had family history of breast cancer and\u00a0cells taken from the healthy breast of women with breast cancer<\/a>\u00a0in the other breast.\u00a0<\/p>\n “With accuracy, we\u00a0were\u00a0able to figure out which women\u00a0were at high risk\u00a0of breast\u00a0cancer\u00a0and which women didn’t seem to be,”\u00a0Dr.\u00a0LaBarge said.\u00a0<\/p>\n This\u00a0work grew out of more than 12\u00a0years of\u00a0collaboration between the two labs, combining engineering innovation with cancer and aging biology. The\u00a0long-term partnership enabled discoveries\u00a0that\u00a0neither group could have reached alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It’s\u00a0a true collaboration.\u00a0We’ve\u00a0learned a lot from each other,”\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Sohn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “In my view, this is what happens when you have a real collaboration that develops over a long time,” LaBarge added. “This result is not what we imagined at the beginning.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers at City of Hope\u00ae,\u00a0a\u00a0cancer research and treatment organization,\u00a0and the University of California, Berkeley,\u00a0have\u00a0created\u00a0a novel microfluidic platform that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2992,1239,258,1702,3302,61,60,3045,9519,89,82,435],"class_list":{"0":"post-414560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-aging","9":"tag-breast-cancer","10":"tag-cancer","11":"tag-diabetes","12":"tag-genetic","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-machine-learning","16":"tag-ph","17":"tag-research","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-stress"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}