Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Most cancer diagnoses are first established using a biopsy, and as such, biopsies are critical to the health care of Canadians. Different types of biopsies are performed to achieve a diagnosis, but physicians do prefer fine-needle aspiration cytology, hereafter referred to as cytology, because it is associated with fewer side effects for the patients. Accordingly, the number of cytology performed annually is increasing for many organs such as lung and pancreas. Cytology is evaluated by pathologists, who are using different tools to refine their diagnoses. The objective of the most commonly used tool is to detect proteins in the cells which are specific for cancer. The multiple preparation steps that have to be performed to colour those proteins can destroy said proteins and therefore affect the reliability of the tool. Our objective is therefore to bypass the preparation steps by using metallic nanoparticles to identify the proteins without degrading them, thus improving the reliability of the diagnosis. Furthermore, we propose to use specific laser-based technologies to detect the metallic nanoparticles. This project may be considered pioneering as clinical validation on human cytology samples will ensure highly beneficial accuracy of diagnosis and optimal selection of treatment, consequently improving the health of Canadian patients. To achieve this innovative research project, we put together an excellent multidisciplinary and complementary team of internationally renowned scientists and industrial partners coming from the full spectrum of knowledge involved in this project. This team has already acquired a strong expertise in metallic nanoparticles use and detection for biological diagnostics and we are recognized by our peers as protein detection experts. Our excellence is demonstrated by multiple patents and declarations of inventions. Our industrial partner, Photon etc, completes our skills in commercialization of metallic nanoparticles and their detection.