Smart contact lenses were developed by scientists who diagnose cancer by detecting tumor chemicals present in tears during the early stages of the disease.
It picks up signals from carriers called “exosomes,” which are like secret messengers inside our bodies.
Found in cells, they are found in various fluids and contain a multitude of proteins on their surface which can be used as hallmarks of cancer, viral infections or injuries.
Minimizing treatment delays improves survival rates for cancer patients. Each month can increase the risk of death by about 10%. These contact lenses offer a potential platform for cancer pre-screening and/or a simple, rapid, sensitive, cost-effective and non-invasive supportive diagnostic tool.
“The lens can detect exosomes in various solutions from various cell lines and human tears,” said project leader Professor Ali Khademhosseini. “It can differentiate surface protein expression as cancer biomarkers.”
Exosomes were once considered dumping grounds for unwanted materials, but are now known to transport different biomolecules between cells. They can also strongly influence tumor regulation, progression and spread.
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“They are a rich source of markers that can be targeted for several biomedical applications,” Dr. Khademhosseini said. “The methodology that our team has developed greatly facilitates our ability to tap into this source.”
Previous attempts to exploit their importance have been hampered by problems of sufficient isolation to provide enough information. Current methods involve tedious, complicated, time-consuming and expensive equipment, and take at least ten hours to perform an analysis.
The simple technique of Khademhosseini’s American team eliminates these problems. Tears are also a better and cleaner source of exosomes than other bodily fluids.
The glass is equipped with microchambers linked to antibodies to which the exosomes adhere. In experiments, it has been successfully tested on exosomes secreted into laboratory fluids from ten different tissue and cancer cell lines – and on tears from ten human volunteers.
Exosomes are scanned using a pair of antibodies on gold nanoparticles to visualize potential signs of cancer.
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Further analysis showed that the lens identified exosomes in solutions of three cell lines with different surface markers and using different antibody combinations.
“The detection and non-detection patterns of exosomes from the three different cell lines were as expected,” he said. “It validated its ability to accurately capture and detect exosomes with different surface markers.”
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