Team:DUT China A/Inspiration
Cancer, now the leading cause of human death, is hard to discover,
control and cure. The circulating tumor cells (CTCs) circulate via
normal vessels and capillaries formed through tumor-induced
angiogenesis. They are very small in number, hidden in the blood cells,
waiting for opportunities to invade tissues like surreptitious snakes
seeking chances to bite. These cells may cause serious risks to human
health, especially to patients. However, they are the outposts for tumor
development and metastasis. Can we arrest these “bad guys” and let them
to become our undercovers to reveal earlier the development trend of
tumors? How can we arrest them?
Yes, in this project, our preys are the CTCs.
Why
CTCs?
CTCs occur early during the formation and growth of a primary tumor (e.g. breast, colon, or prostate cancer), cells shed from the primary tumor and then circulate through the bloodstream. CTCs are essential to cancer metastasis, may create new tumors in different tissues or organs. Typically, an elevation in CTCs at any time during clinical treatment of cancers is an indicator of cancer progression. Due to the necessity of the CTCs in tumor metastasis, the detecting, capturing and isolation the CTCs can be a meaningful work both for clinical and research purposes.
Why
living CTCs?
CTCs are more valuable because they are promising candidates for detection and further study of tumor cells.
How
to capture living CTCs?
CTCs are very rare and admixed with a very large number of erythrocytes, leukocytes, and platelets in blood, making their isolation, capture, and detection a major technological challenge. In order to discover and capture living CTCs, we come to an idea: We are going to construct a DNA hydrogel cage for CTCs, which can recognize the CTCs, light up the CTCs, and coat the CTCs by auto-assemble hydrogels around the cells. Hydrogels are very soft materials and can exhibit large volume changes, thus are promising encapsulation materials to maintain long-term viability of the CTCs.