By the time someone is diagnosed with the deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme, it is typically too late for treatment. Patients are usually dead within 12 months of the diagnosis. That's why LAS chemistry professor Ryan Bailey has initiated an ambitious effort to detect this and other types of cancers much earlier, when treatment is significantly more effective.

To boost the fledgling project, Bailey was recently awarded the prestigious National Institutes of Health's New Innovator Award, which recognizes bold ideas from innovative young scientists. The $1.5 million grant will help Bailey develop ultra-sensitive sensors that screen genes and proteins for signs of cancer and other deadly diseases. What's more, he's looking for sensors that are robust, economical, and reliable outside of the lab.

"With everything we do, if it doesn't transfer outside this lab, then it's not worth our effort," Bailey says.

To transfer the technology outside of the lab, Bailey co-founded and serves on the scientific advisory board of Genalyte, a start-up company in San Diego that will run with these new ideas. Their technology is capable of fitting thousands of sensors on a square centimeter. Each sensor would be unique in its abilities, making it possible to measure the concentrations of thousands of gene or protein biomarkers simultaneously.

"We think of biology as an information science," Bailey says. "The more information you have, the better you can describe a system. So in many ways, to catch disease early, it's just a matter of measuring enough biological information."

The sensors being developed in Bailey's lab are based upon silicon photonics technology and can be fabricated using robust and cost-effective semiconductor manufacturing processes. Bailey says they are aiming for sensors that can be mass-produced economically so that this screening procedure can be accessible to many people — much the way that the PSA test is routinely used to detect prostate cancer.

The long-range goal is to reach the point where you simply submit a pinprick of blood to be screened for disease. This kind of system could remove one of the biggest obstacles to early detection — fear.

"If someone feels a lump in their breast, a surprising number of people are so scared of it, they will not go see the doctor," Bailey says. But routinely offering a small blood sample would be much less threatening to people, making it possible to catch cancer several years before you would have any symptoms.

"And early detection of cancer is the key," he says.

Bailey says they are starting simple by building relatively small sensor arrays. Once they demonstrate that the sensors work, they will move on to larger clusters of sensors. Although the ultimate goal is to sense many types of diseases, they will begin by testing the sensors on glioblastoma multiforme, which actually constitutes several different brain cancers.

In addition to detection systems, Bailey's lab is focusing on innovative, personalized treatments for cancer and other diseases. For instance, he says one of the most promising approaches is isolating the specific T cells in the immune system that can kill a person's particular form of cancer. If these T cells can be isolated, they can be removed, cloned, and then re-injected into the body to battle the cancer.

"Finding the right T cells, however, is the ultimate needle-in-a-haystack problem," Bailey says.

To find the right needle in a haystack filled with needles, it takes information, he says. It also takes systems that can collect this information — like the one being built at U of I.