New NMR-based device detects microvesicles

Investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Systems Biology (CSB) have demonstrated that microvesicles shed by brain cancer cells can be detected in human blood through a combination of nanotechnology and a new NMR-based device they developed. The study was published in Nature Medicine.

Microvesicles are fragments shed by almost all cell types but are more numerously shed by cancer cells than normal cells, and so can be used for the detection of cancerous ones. While circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been eyed as a means of early cancer diagnosis, their rarity in the bloodstream is seen as a problem. On the other hand, microvesicles are abundant in the circulation and are small enough to cross the blood brain barrier, and so can be used to detect and monitor brain cancer.

The MGH CSB investigators developed a simple blood test that can be used to easily monitor the progress of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and most aggressive brain cancer in humans. The researchers used nanotechnology to magnetically label microvesicles, and then used a miniature, handheld NMR they have developed to detect the labeled tumor microvesicles in blood samples from mice and eventually humans with GBM.