Bionanomechanics Lab Group of the Institute of Micro and Nanotechnology of the CSIC (IMN-CSIC), in collaboration with Marcos Malumbres (Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), has developed an innovative method to suppress the main source of noise in digital holographic microscopy that allows visualization of the metabolic activity of cells with high spatial resolution and high sensitivity in a few minutes. The results are published in the open-access journal iScience.
“This breakthrough has revealed that breast cancer cells present well-defined regions where most of the metabolic activity powered by ATP (known as the energy currency of life, a molecule that provides energy in most cellular processes) takes place,” explains Javier Tamayo, Research Professor and Principal Investigator of the Bionanomechanics Lab group. “Surprisingly, as malignancy increases, cells strategically expand these active regions to meet their increasing energy demands” adds Jose Jaime Ruz, co-author of the paper.“This development provides a unique tool for understanding the deregulation of metabolism in tumors” explains.
In addition, the group has developed image processing and treatment algorithms that allow determining the malignancy and metastatic potential of cancer cells in a short period of time and with high precision using deep learning algorithms, which have already been patented by co-authors Alvaro Cano and Jose Jaime Ruz.
The noise decorrelation and image analysis algorithms have been protected by CSIC patent.
