A Negative Dielectrophoresis Based Method of Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Antigen CA 242 in Serum

Abstract

Patients with pancreatic cancer in metastasis rarely survive, thus the need for diagnostic tools for early stage detection. Current techniques such as ELISA and SPR are complex and expensive and cannot detect cancer in its early stages. Cancer Antigen 242 (CA 242) is a potential protein biomarker of pancreatic cancer with high sensitivity and specificity. This thesis presents a negative Dielectrophoresis (DEP) based method of detecting pancreatic cancer protein biomarker CA 242 in serum. A spectrum of concentration levels was generated with a cut off level 20 U/mL using a transduction mechanism with negative DEP spectroscopy, light scattering, and image processing. This was a fast and cost-effective method to diagnose early stage pancreatic cancer. This thesis also presents the design and simulation of an electrode modified to increase the electric field gradient with reduced heat generation and a concentration prediction model to predict concentrations from the generated spectrum of experiments.