Chinese Scientists Develop Handheld Device to Detect Cancer from a Single Drop of Blood

Scientists from Westlake University have created a portable device capable of identifying early-stage cancer biomarkers from a single drop of blood with up to 94.9% accuracy, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

The research team, led by Wen Liaoyong, believes the technology could soon make early cancer screening possible using only a tiny blood sample. The findings were published in the journal Nature Photonics.

“This work establishes a scalable and robust nanophotonic biosensing paradigm for miniaturised, high-performance diagnostics in clinical, remote and at-home settings,” Wen wrote in the introduction to the study.

Wen’s research focuses on advanced multicomponent nanostructured materials and their multifunctional applications.

Current technologies used to detect cancer biomarkers in blood rely on prisms, spectrometers and sophisticated optical systems. Such equipment is typically as large as a double-door refrigerator and is mainly limited to laboratories and specialised testing facilities.

To overcome these limitations, Wen’s team employed a technique known as Q-modulated refractometric sensing, allowing the system to be reduced to handheld size. Unlike traditional spectroscopy, which measures light wavelength, the new approach analyses light intensity.

The researchers also developed a three-dimensional chip based on metamaterials — engineered surfaces designed to manipulate light in ways that natural materials cannot.

The project builds on earlier findings published last year in Nature Materials, where the team used aluminium to achieve highly precise manufacturing across scales ranging from nano to macro.

Conventional optical chips based on metasurfaces are manufactured using electron-beam lithography, a process compared to copying a book word by word. This makes large-scale production difficult and expensive, with each chip costing hundreds of dollars.

Wen’s group effectively transformed chip production from the “book copying” era into the “movable type printing” era. By creating a master template and then mass-producing the chips, the researchers were able to print thousands of nearly identical chips simultaneously on an eight-inch wafer, reducing the cost per chip to just US$5.

Because the system measures only light intensity, the final device can remain remarkably simple, consisting of a 3D BIC sensing chip, an LED light source and a photodetector. Once assembled, the detector is compact enough for home use without requiring laboratory conditions.

To demonstrate the platform’s capabilities, the researchers collaborated with Xiamen University to detect small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) associated with lung cancer.

These sEVs are important biomarkers in liquid biopsy, but their extremely low concentrations in early-stage patients make them difficult to identify using conventional techniques.

According to the study, the handheld device was about 10,000 times more sensitive than the standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in detecting early lung cancer biomarkers.

In tests involving 171 serum samples from lung cancer patients, the system achieved up to 94.9% accuracy in early lung cancer detection and 92.1% accuracy in post-operative monitoring. Traditional ELISA methods, by comparison, reached only 74.7%.

The researchers say the platform could have applications beyond cancer screening.

“Micro-nano manufacturing technology – as a core supporting technology of the modern information society – has been widely applied in fields such as optical, electrical and magnetic signal interaction, becoming a key force in promoting digital and intelligent transformation,” Wen said.

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