Background

Cancer is a leading cause of death, which has become a great barrier to increase life expectancy worldwide. According to a report from World Health Organization(WHO) in 2019, cancer is ranked as the first or second cause of death for people under 70 among 112 countries. The global cancer cases are projected to reach 28.4 million in 2040, comparing to the number of 19.3 million in 2020. In conclusion, the cancer incidence and mortality is rising rapidly all over the world. Millions of cancer patients are suffering physical pain and mental stress, not to mention the huge economic burden to their families and the society.

After learning the current situation of cancer, we designed a questionnaire about the public awareness of cancer among hundreds of people. What surprises us is that almost 91.63 percent of respondents think the late diagnosis is one of the reasons of high mortality. It is recorded that about 1/3 of cancers worldwide are entirely preventable, 1/3 of cancers could be cured by early detection, and there is 1/3 of cancers whose pain can be relieved by using medical methods, according to the report from WHO. Therefore, the early cancer diagnosis is of great importance.

Here is our survey result on “Causes of high cancer mortality”.

Current Methods

Early and precise cancer diagnosis can also improve patients' survival substantially. However, current early cancer diagnosis methods including X-ray diagnosis, CT diagnosis, PET-CT diagnosis, and endoscopy diagnosis, are expensive and inconvenient. While biological sampling diagnosis, focusing on cytological diagnosis, mainly cell smear and needle biopsy, brings great pain to patients, causes trauma in vitro and has many other defects.

Here is our survey result on “Views on cancer detection”.

Inspiration

In order to solve this problem, we are devoted to find a rapid, accurate, inexpensive and non-invasive method for early cancer screening. Blood biochemical test has broad prospects because of its convenient sampling, low cost and low equipment requirements. As a result, our team has done some research in this area. By contacting Prof.Han Da, a professor from the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, we learn that using microRNAs, tumor biomarkers in serum, to diagnose cancer precisely in early stage can meet these requirements. His research group is working on designing a DNA molecular computation platform for the analysis of miRNA profiles in clinical serum samples. After further communication, we decide to collaborate with them to build a DNA molecular computation platform.

Goals

We expect to build a DNA computing platform for the analysis of miRNA in clinical serum samples to achieve early and convenient cancer diagnosis. The platform focuses on two functions. The first function is to identify which miRNA is the best biomarker for a cancer. The second function is to design the probe. In the process of performing DNA computation, probe designing is the key part, determining the quality of results. However, probes are usually designed by professionals based on their experiences. This is obviously not friendly to non-professionals. Therefore, we conduct several steps to help probe design.

Future

This promising nano technology not only can be used in the cancer screening area, but also will be significant to broader diagnosis of various diseases. For almost every illness, there are relevant changes in the amount and characteristics of nucleotides(DNA&RNA), which are all able to be detected by using the DNA computation platform. With the most suitable probes being designed and processing of nano interaction, it is stirring that medical workers can use our software to better promote the diagnosis of many kinds of diseases in a more efficient and friendly way.

References

[1] Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel R L, et al. Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries[J]. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 2021, 71(3): 209-249.
[2] Zhang C, Zhao Y, Xu X, Xu R, Li H, Teng X, Du Y, Miao Y, Lin HC, Han D. Cancer diagnosis with DNA molecular computation. Nat Nanotechnol. 2020 Aug;15(8):709-715. doi: 10.1038/s41565-020-0699-0. Epub 2020 May 25. PMID: 32451504.
[3] Nair M K, Varghese C, Swaminathan R. Cancer: Current scenario, intervention strategies and projections for 2015[J]. NCHM Background papers-Burden of Disease in India, 2005: 219-25.