‘Significant cancer breakthrough’ as tiny needle ‘500 times thinner than human hair’ paves way for miracle cure

A NEEDLE 500 times thinner than human hair could pave the way for new cancer cures.

Scientists from the University of Leeds used a tiny, high-tech needle called a nanopipette to see how cancer cells react to treatment and change over time.

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Current techniques to study individual cells usually destroy them, so researchers can only study them before or after treatment.

But the tool developed by Leeds researchers can take a “biopsy” of a living cell repeatedly while it’s exposed to cancer treatment, sampling tiny extracts of its contents without killing it.

This allowed scientists to observe how cells react to treatment over time.

The pipette has two nanoscopic – meaning tiny – needles that can simultaneously inject and extract a sample from the same cancer cell.

Author Dr Lucy Stead, Associate Professor of Brain Cancer Biology in Leeds’ School of Medicine, called the findings “a significant breakthrough”.

“This type of technology is going to provide a layer of understanding that we have simply never had before,” she said.

“And that new understanding and insight will lead to new weapons in our armoury against all types of cancer.”

The team of biologists and engineers tested cancer cells’ resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, publishing their findings in the journal Science Advances.

They specifically studied glioblastoma (GBM) – the deadliest form of brain tumour – because of its ability to adapt to treatment and survive. 

Researchers used a nanosurgical platform to manipulate the pipette, as it’s far to small to manipulate by hand.

Using glioblastoma cells in a petri dish, miniscule needles controlled by robotic software were manoeuvred into the cells.

The device allowed scientists to take samples repeatedly and study the progression of disease in an individual cell.

A lot of molecular biology research is carried out on populations of cells, giving an average result, when in fact every cell is different.

Dr Stead said: “Glioblastoma is the cancer in most need of new weapons because in 20 years there has been no improvement in survival in this disease.  

“It is lagging behind so much and we think that is because of the highly ‘plastic’ nature of these tumours – their ability to adapt to treatment and survive it. 

“That is why it is so important that we can dynamically observe and characterise these cells as they change, so we can map out the journey these cells can take, and subsequently find ways to stop them at every turn.

“We simply couldn’t do that with the technologies that we had.” 

Dr Stead said further research on more lab samples and humans needed to be carried out using this technology, but that it had already yielded hugely valuable information.  

The research was in large part funded by The Brain Tumour Charity.

Its chief scientific officer Dr Simon Newman observed that glioblastoma cells tend to respond differently to treatment than other cancers, often developing resistance to the treatment that can result in the cancer returning.

“The development of this novel technology, which can extract samples from tumour cells grown in the lab before and after treatment, will give a unique insight into how drug resistance may develop and lead to tumours growing back,” he said.

Co-author Dr Paolo Actis, Associate Professor of Bio-Nanotechnology in Leeds’ School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, noted that cancer cells that aren’t killed by chemotherapy are the ones that make the cancer grow back and lead to death. 

“Our tool can pinpoint these cells and we can now perform biopsies on them so we can specifically study how the ones that survive treatment have changed,” he said.

“This is crucially important as the more we can understand how the cells change, the more drugs we can develop to stop them from adapting.” 

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