Work-in-Progress: Intra-Body Nanonetworks for In Vivo Biomarker Detection in Capillaries

Advancements in medical diagnostics are crucial for early disease detection and effective treatment. One of the most advanced diagnostic methods is liquid biopsy (LB). It involves analyzing bodily fluids such as blood or saliva samples to identify disease biomarkers (BMs), including proteins, DNA/RNA fragments, and other organic chemicals produced by abnormal cells [3]. Compared to traditional tissue biopsies, LB is less invasive and provides shorter turnaround delays-the time it takes to get laboratory results from the bodily fluid samples. However, current LB methods face significant challenges. They rely on ex vivo processes that involve handling and analyzing samples outside the body, resulting in a turnaround delay of around seven days. Additionally, they can access only a tiny fraction of available BMs, limiting their efficacy in early-stage disease detection when BM concentrations are exceedingly low. For example, only 0.3% of total circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is found in a 15 ml blood sample [2].