Cancer is a major burden on mankind - 1 in 3 men and 1 in 4 women in Australia will be directly affected by cancer in the first 75 years of life. Cancer accounts for 29% of male deaths and 25% of female deaths in Australia each year. For many types of cancer, it is easier to treat and cure if it is found early. Current test equipment for early detection of cancer is expensive and impractical to market it effectively due to its cost. Researchers at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research (LICR) are cooperating with Sienna Capital Limited to develop a non-invasive method for early cancer detection which results in the emission of very faint luminescence light. If successful, this will be a more robust and cheaper alternative for early cancer detection.

Our project objective is to build a device that can detect this faint luminescence light and amplify this signal to over 1 billion times. The signal is then passed into a computer which will then analyze the signal waveform and output the vital information concerning the cancer cells. The final result would be an early cancer detector that would be used to integrate to a computer where further graphing, analysis and diagnosis can be carried out by the doctor or researcher performing the test.

he group is confident that this project is sound in principle and stands a good chance of getting to the market and being beneficial for many cancer patients. Already, a prototype has been constructed successfully by last year’s PF2 group. We hope to improve on the prototype and to push forward for an end product which is marketable, user friendly, high accuracy, portable and cost effective.

Hong-Ghee Ong, Li Shern Paul Tune, Associate Professor Peter Farrell, Tze-Han Ng