Skin cancer detection device wins award

A high-tech device capable of detecting melanoma skin cancer has won the international James Dyson Award 2017. This innovative device was developed by four engineering students from McMaster University in Canada.

The device, called sKan, detects melanoma quickly, cost-effectively and non-invasively by using temperature sensors to measure skin temperature in a specific area.

Developed by four young engineering students from McMaster University in Canada, the device impressed the James Dyson Award 2017 jury with its ease of use and its potential for saving lives worldwide by improving early diagnosis rates.

Placed directly on skin, the device applies cold to the area being tested, creating a thermal shock. It then measures how long skin takes to return to its initial temperature. The faster this occurs, the greater the likelihood of melanoma, since cancerous cells regain heat more quickly than healthy cells.

Results from the device are then transferred to a computer which creates a heat map, showing how long different areas of skin took to heat back up.

With the $40,000 prize money, the team of engineers who developed the device plan to hone their design and develop a prototype, before envisaging clinical trials in the longer term.

Each year, 200,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed worldwide. If detected in time, 90 percent of skin cancers can be treated. Seventy percent of skin cancer cases are linked to excessive sun exposure, mainly intermittent and intense periods of exposure during childhood.

The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. Run by the charitable trust of the British inventor James Dyson, the award is open to current and recent design and engineering students in 23 countries.

Last year’s award winner was American student Isis Shiffer with her folding, recyclable cycle helmet, called EcoHelmet, designed for people using bike-sharing schemes. JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

Bananas may help detect, cure skin cancer — study

PARIS, France — The black spots on old banana peels may unlock a faster, easier diagnosis of human skin cancer, boosting survival chances, scientists said Monday.

When bananas ripen, their skin is covered in small, round black spots caused by an enzyme known as tyrosinase.

The same enzyme is present in human skin, and in greater quantities in people suffering from melanoma — a potentially deadly form of skin cancer.


A team of scientists used this observed commonality to build a cancer scanner, which they then refined and tested at length on banana peels before moving on to human tissue.

First, researchers at the Laboratory of Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry in Switzerland concluded that the enzyme is a reliable marker of melanoma growth.

In the earliest stage 1 of cancer, the enzyme is not very apparent, becoming widespread and evenly distributed in stage 2, and unevenly distributed in stage 3 — by when the cancer has started spreading to other parts of the body.

The earlier the cancer is detected, the greater the chances of survival.

According to the American Cancer Society, people have a 10-year survival rate of 95 percent if the melanoma is detected in stage 1 — falling to 43 percent by mid-stage 3.

The team developed a scanner and tested it on banana peel spots — which are roughly the same size as melanoma spots on human skin.

“By working with fruit, we were able to develop and test a diagnostic method before trying it on human biopsies,” team leader Hubert Girault said in a statement.

The scanner has eight flexible microelectrodes, spaced like comb teeth, that pass over the skin to measure the quantity and distribution of tyrosinase.

“This system could obviate the need for invasive tests like biopsies,” the team said.

Girault believes the scanner could be used one day to destroy tumors, hopefully rendering biopsies and even chemotherapy unnecessary.

“Our initial laboratory tests showed us that our device could be used to destroy the cells,” he said.

The research was published in the German science journal Angewandte Chemie.

source: technology.inquirer.net