With more than 36,000 people being diagnosed with brain tumors each year, and another 150,000 patients suffering from the spread of other cancers to the brain, an interdisciplinary team is working to discover new ways to identify tumors more accurately so that better information about prognosis and treatment options can be made available to patients and their families.

The Brain Tumor Biochip [BTChip(TM)] is currently being developed as a collaborative effort within the Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B). This collaborative research effort involves neurosurgery, molecular genetics, engineering and bioinformatics. The goal of this project is to produce a highly dedicated chip, or suite of chips, that will aid the pathologist in arriving at a molecular diagnostic assessment of excised brain tumors.

The biochip platform has been under development within the C3B since 1999. C3B consortium members, faculty and industry members, pursue non-traditional approaches to DNA hybridization detection in the Advanced DNA Microarray project. Here, they work to implement these basic science and engineering developments in clinically convenient and expeditious diagnostic and prognostic technologies to improve upon brain tumor outcomes.

The “Biochip” is a small, wafer-thin chip carrying 1000's of spotted DNA samples for detecting cancer-causing DNA in tumor tissue samples. After being exposed to an extract of the tissue, the brain tumor biochip is analyzed to provide digitized data on the tumor's genetic structure. One goal of VCU scientists is improving the biochip reading instrument itself to make it capable of even more advanced bioelectronic analyses for more precise descriptions of tumor behavior.

The Brain Tumor project is dedicated to understanding the gene expression in brain tumors, elucidating new criteria for the classification of brain tumors, and developing new diagnostic technology and therapeutic principles that will aid in the treatment of individuals afflicted with this illness. At the heart of the Brain Tumor project is the 10K oligonucleotide microarray, which will be used to survey the gene expression in brain tumor samples taken from MCV patients. With the resulting knowledge, the C3B hopes to define diagnostic and predictive genetic markers for brain tumors and implement these genetic markers on a new microarray platform that functions by impedimetric detection of DNA hybridization. We hope that this new platform will transition into the clinical setting and be useful as a therapeutic tool for classifying and staging tumors, and defining tailored treatment options.

Current students:
G. Scott Taylor, B.S. Biology, M.S. Biology, Ph.D. Candidate Engineering
Louise Lingerfelt, B.S. Chemistry, M.S. Chemical Engineering, Ph.D. Candidate Engineering
Han Chen, M.D., M.S. Microbiology, M.S. Computer Sciences and Engineering, Ph.D. Candidate Engineering