Colour-changing microscope slides can detect cancer

An innovative new microscope slide, called NanoMslide, is promising to revolutionise medical imaging after Australian researchers demonstrated that it can be used to detect breast cancer cells in patients.

By modifying the surface of conventional microscope slides at the nanoscale, biological structures and cells take on a striking colour contrast which can be used to instantly detect disease. The breakthrough has been published in the journal Nature.

Professor Brian Abbey has spent the past five years developing the technology at La Trobe University with co-inventor Dr Eugeniu Balaur. Prof Abbey noted, “Current approaches to tissue imaging often rely on staining or labelling cells in order to render them visible under the microscope.

“Even with staining or labelling, it can be challenging for pathologists to detect cancer cells, with the risk that some samples are misdiagnosed, particularly during the very early stages of disease.

“Recent breakthroughs in nanotechnology have allowed us to manipulate the interaction of light with biological tissue so that abnormal cells appear to have a different colour to healthy ones. Comparing images from our slides to conventional staining is like watching colour television when all you’ve seen before is black and white.”

La Trobe scientists teamed up with co-lead researcher Associate Professor Belinda Parker’s group at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to trial the new technology as an aid to diagnosing very early-stage breast cancer. Assoc Prof Parker said current techniques can mean it is difficult to distinguish early forms of breast cancer from benign lesions — particularly when there are not many abnormally shaped cells in a complex tissue — but the NanoMslide makes such a diagnosis much easier.

“When I first looked at a tissue under the microscope on the NanoMslide, I was incredibly excited,” said Assoc Prof Parker, who is also an adjunct associate professor at La Trobe.

“For the first time I saw cancer cells just popping up at me. They were a different colour from the surrounding tissue, and it was very easy to distinguish them from surrounding cells.”

Associate Prof Parker believes the NanoMslide will complement existing stains currently in use, to allow for more consistent cancer diagnoses. She said, “Based on our preliminary findings with the NanoMslide, we think this platform could be really useful in early breast cancer diagnosis, but also in other cancers where we’re really just trying to pick up a few cancer cells in a complex tissue or a blood sample.”

Prof Abbey’s group were able to develop their slide technology by harnessing open access equipment and expertise made available by the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, the flagship facility of the Victorian node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). The team will work with MCN and the national ANFF network as they start producing their slides in much larger quantities to enter the market and to tackle a wide range of medical as well as non-medical imaging problems.

La Trobe is now aiming to engage with industry partners, with future plans to commercialise the NanoMslide through a new spin-out company, Allesense.

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