VCU developing electronic brain tumor sensor

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

RICHMOND, Va. – Every year, more than 36,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumors, and another 150,000 learn that cancer has spread to their brain from other parts of their body. More than half of those diagnosed with malignant tumors are told they won’t live another five years.

Finding ways to more accurately identify those tumors and target the appropriate treatment, therefore, is a high priority for researchers and doctors.

Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University are testing a new technology that could dramatically improve the treatment of brain tumor patients. The brain tumor biochip will give doctors a genetic fingerprint of the tumor so they can more accurately identify the tumor and prescribe the most effective therapies.

Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, Sc.D., chemical engineering professor and director of VCU’s Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips, is developing a wafer-thin chip no larger than a fingernail that is programmed to detect cancer-causing DNA in a patient’s brain tumor tissue sample. The brain tumor biochip is placed under a glass slide and analyzed by a high-tech instrument – today it’s a microscope manufactured by PerkinElmer Inc., a global technology company based in Boston, MA – which snaps a digital image of the tumor’s genetic structure. Future generations of the biochip reading instrument, which Dr. Guiseppi-Elie is developing, will perform more advanced bioelectronic analyses.

"The instrument will have the ability to handle a prepared sample and have the chip generate the signals that are read by a monitor and generate data that is useful for the physician," said Guiseppi-Elie.

Guiseppi-Elie is collaborating on the project with VCU neurosurgeon William C. Broaddus, M.D., Ph.D., who says the technology will better identify the behavior of tumors, resulting in more accurate diagnoses and treatments.

"It allows us to be more clear with the patient and family about what they can expect from the brain tumor in terms of whether it’s likely to reoccur, whether it’s likely to respond to therapy and how long the patient may have to live," said Broaddus.

Approximately 350,000 people in the United States were living with a malignant brain tumor in 2000, the most-recent year that statistics are available from the Central Brain Tumor Registry. The non-profit registry gathers and disseminates epidemiological data on primary brain tumors in order to facilitate research and establish awareness of the disease.

An estimated 13,000 deaths were attributed that year to the tumors. Brain tumors are the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in males aged 20-39, the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women aged 20-39 and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children under the age of 20. For those diagnosed with malignant tumors between 1992 and1997, 32 percent survived, according to the National Cancer Institute.

There are many different types of brain tumors. Broaddus says the brain tumor biochip could help determine why some are unresponsive to treatment and, eventually, how aggressive doctors should be in removing the tumors.

"I expect that it’s going to improve our ability to make diagnoses, refine the diagnoses that we make and, I hope, identify promising therapies," said Broaddus.