Power Puff Girls

In week 2, our group did a deeper research on characteristics of tumor cells and previous research projects on early diagnosis of cancer. Some characteristics of cancer cells that can be taken advantage of in diagnosis are:   Enhanced Permeability and Retention. This is the ability to absorb and retain particles in the body; healthy cells don't absorb as many particles as tumor cells.   Producing Proteins that can be detected in the blood (like Prostate-specific antigen produced by prostate gland)   Many kinds of cells shed microvesicles into blood, but the amount by tumor cells is substantial.  The presence of particular genes related to cancer in fluids produced from the body. We also brainstormed on different methods that can be used to diagnose early cancer. Here are the top three of strategies: 1: Using magnetic field to attract induced cancer cell-binding magnetic nanoparticles and extracting them with a syringe   Figure 1: A ...

9/12/2017 This week, we interviewed our client Dr. Xi Jinxing to get an idea of what kind of a product he wants. The main topics that we discussed were: - The main purpose of the project - Using COMSOL to simulate magnet strengths - Which shape of the magnet can maximize the amount of tumor cells harvested - His previous project  Image 1: A picture of the notes taken during the interview Dr Xi also showed us two of the magnets printed by the company that will print our device parts Image 2: A magnet under a black magnetic viewing film. This film is a thin flexible sheet which is used to visualize magnetic fields of a magnet Image 3: A magnet printed by POLYMAGNET company from Alabama, which we hope will print the magnets used for our project too. Overall, we understood better the aim of this project  which is to create a model in Comsol which mimics the fluid flow in a vein with a permanent magnet attached that will provide the ideal magnetic field pa...