Model Predicts the Progress of Disease Detection By Calla
Cofield Many groups at the APS March Meeting presented their
work on new devices for disease detection. Three groups
presented work on more robust TB detectors. Another company
revealed proof of concept for a handheld device that could do
everything from monitoring white blood cells to identifying
bacteria in drinking water. John X. J. Zhang and researchers
from the University of Texas at Austin want to improve on
current technologies to identify tumor cells that appear in the
bloodstream long before tumors become visible through imaging
techniques. They are engineering sensors that go out and look
for the cancer cells in the sample, in contrast to current
technology in which the sensors remain stationary and wait for
the cells to pass by. In this way Zhang and his group have
changed the relationship between the number of disease
indicators in a volume and the time it takes for them to reach
the sensor. According to Ashram Alam, a professor of electric