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In cancer treatment, early detection is crucial to prevent metastasis, but traditional biopsies can be both invasive and unreliable. The SCALPEL project team, from the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) in Belgium, aimed to revolutionise this process with a simple blood test (or ‘liquid biopsy’) that can provide comprehensive insights into a patient’s cancer type and progression, offering hope for earlier and more precise intervention.
Liesbet Lagae, project coordinator and Life Sciences R&D director at IMEC, explains: “Finding metastatic cancer cells in blood is like finding a needle in a haystack. We wanted to develop a chip that could find and sort them to analyse and understand the cancer subtype. Rather than taking a biopsy, a ‘liquid biopsy’ or blood test would give us all the information needed.”
Game-changing vision
SCALPEL’s goal was ambitious: to create a miniaturised platform capable of isolating and analysing metastatic cancer cells in blood samples with minimal manual intervention. In developing a compact microchip that could quickly identify and sort each individual cell, the team hoped to accelerate cancer detection and personalise treatments for better outcomes. This would revolutionise how cancer patients are monitored and treated and enable on-the-spot diagnosis directly at hospitals.
To achieve this, the team integrated two advanced techniques onto a microfluidic chip. The first is Gentle Microfluidic Sorting – where a bubble-based switch, activated thermally, gently directs cells to different microfluidic outlets, minimising cell damage while ensuring fast sorting. The second is Lens-Free Detection, a non-invasive method that analyses cell shape using a light guide and digital sensor to differentiate between cancer and immune cells.
From concept to clinical success
In lab tests, the tool successfully sorted cells at a high rate, reliably detecting both metastatic cancer cell lines and immune cell lines. The next step was testing their methodology on blood samples from real patients. Collaborating with clinicians An Coosemans and Dirk Timmerman from the KU Leuven University Hospital in Leuven, the team trialled their technology on biopsies from ovarian cancer patients.
SCALPEL exceeded expectations by discovering that the chip could also identify more than metastatic cancer cells.
“We discovered that the tool also detects immune signatures from ovarian cancer patients,” says Lagae. These readings can be used to determine how well a patient is responding to therapy.
The SCALPEL initiative achieved another milestone by contributing to a European Research Council Proof of Concept study, demonstrating that the very same chip could identify and sort immune cells, which could then be reprogrammed into potent T-cells to attack cancer.
This finding opens the door to personalised treatments, where immune cells from the patient could be tailored to treat specific cancers, boosting each patient’s unique immune response.
Prototype and potential
The project had to navigate a host of technical and clinical challenges, such as ensuring that their technology could seamlessly integrate into real-world practices.
Overcoming these barriers only contributed to the project’s success. The team’s collaboration with Sarcura, a newly founded Austrian start-up, is helping advance the chip prototype into product development, with the potential to transform immune cell therapy. This compact, high-throughput cell sorter could make future cell therapies more efficient and more affordable to produce.
As SCALPEL evolves, its potential applications are vast. The technology is already being adapted to bring personalised, cutting-edge cancer treatments closer to reality, making them more accessible and changing how we fight cancer. Meanwhile, Daniela Buchmayr, CEO of Sarcura, expects the first microchip cell sorter product to launch on the market in 2027.