Wireless Chips May Detect Cancer

By Radeyah Hack

Wireless microchips monitoring biochemical changes in tissue cells may become the future of cancer prevention.

Researchers at Stony Brook University, including physicians from the Health Sciences Center and engineers and computer scientists from CEWIT - the popular acronym for the Center for Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology - are collaborating on developing the new devices. They are investigating ways of implanting wireless microchips that sense the smallest abnormal biochemical changes in the tissue area of removed tumors.

“Wireless is becoming so ubiquitous in our society,” said Yacov Shamash, vice president for economic development and dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The goal is to develop a chip that senses abnormal changes signaling the recurrence of a tumor. Not only that, but the chip will also deliver an appropriate dose of medication to destroy the tumor cells and prevent the growth and metastasis of malignant cancer cells. Physicians will be trained to use wireless technology to monitor the chip and to control the release of medication.

“An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” said Dr. Basil Rigas, the principal investigator on the research team at CEWIT. The goal for the wireless chips is to circumvent full-blown, malignant cancer growth at the early stages of cancer-cell transformation so as to avoid difficult treatments such as chemotherapy.
 
“You can attack cancer from a lot of angles,” said Satyah Sharma, the director of CEWIT. The idea behind wireless microchips in cancer prevention is to use radio frequency identification chips as wireless sensors that will capture and analyze non-cancerous and cancerous biochemicals and transmit the information through wireless signals.

“A lot of research is still preliminary,” Rigas said. “We can’t talk about the details too much to protect intellectual property.” 

Rigas and his team of investigators received $1 million in funding from the federal government for their project and expect corporate sponsorship as well. “Right now we have to show some results before we get corporate sponsors,” Sharma said. 

The research will be conducted entirely on Stony Brook’s campus and at the wireless technology center now being built on the Flowerfield property adjacent to the university's West Campus. The team will consist of researchers in a range of fields from computer science to the medical sciences. “This is an outgrowth and interactions across multidisciplinary boundaries and reflects the leadership of Dr. Shamash for fostering these connections,” Rigas said.