The survival rate of cancer patients can drop to ten percent or less during metastasis, the spread of cancerous cells to create secondary tumors. Therefore, it is crucial that cancer is detected and treated before metastasis occurs, or at least at its early stages. To spread the cancer, messenger cells known as Circulating Tumor Cells, or CTCs, break off of the original tumor and flow through the bloodstream to create a secondary growth. A team of researchers led by Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and Principal Investigator at the NYU Abu Dhabi Mohammad A. Qasaimeh, have developed a new microfluidic system, called the Herringbone Microfluidic Probe (HB-MFP), that effectively isolates both CTCs and clusters of CTCs from blood samples of cancer patients for easier and more insightful analysis.
