University of Washington receives $21M grant for ‘groundbreaking’ cancer research

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – With help from research at the University of Washington, surgeons may soon be able to identify cancer cells in real-time while in the operating room.

That research recently received a $21 million boost from President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative to further the “groundbreaking” work, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) announced Wednesday.

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“There are no technologies that can achieve what we’re trying to do,” said Jonathan Liu, a University of Washington professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and lead researcher on the project.

For nearly a decade, scientists have been developing technology to help surgeons determine how successful tumor removal is and if a patient has lingering cancer cells during surgery.

With help from the grant, Liu’s team — and researchers from Tulane University and Rice University — are developing a microscope and AI technology to help doctors visualize individual cancer cells on a tumor after it is removed. This will help doctors determine if more cancer cells are present in the patient’s body before surgery is complete.

“The problem right now is that for a large number of patients, the first surgery is not always effective at completely removing the tumor. So, for example, for breast cancer surgeries, roughly 20% of patients have to come back for additional surgeries to make sure that all of the tumor has been removed. And for head and neck cancer, that number is closer to 40% of patients have to return or don’t have a complete surgery the first time,” Liu said.

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In addition to tools such as MRI scans, Liu explained, “right now, surgeons are largely relying on their sense of sight and their sense of touch to determine what’s tumor, what’s normal. It’s a little bit subjective.”

“They don’t have a great way to see cells that really could tell you if the tissue is a tumor or benign. And so that’s one of the reasons why these surgeries aren’t always complete,” He added.

“What we’re trying to do is to have a microscope in the operating room where they can place the excise tissue immediately onto that microscope, we can scan the margins — meaning the outer surface of the excise specimen– to tell the surgeon if there’s any tumor left on the surface. If there’s tumor left on the surface of that excision, that means there’s still tumor left in the patient, and so they have to keep cutting,” Liu said.

“Our goal is to show that we can provide accurate diagnosis of tumors at the margins of these tissues without having to wait multiple days for that result, where the patient has to come back for additional surgeries,” Liu said.

“Traditionally, microscopy has always been the gold standard, and so that’s where we come in, where we have an ability to develop a microscope that can work so quickly that we can image large amounts of fresh tissues in the operating room at that cellular resolution that pathologists need to really diagnose the cancer accurately, and in this case, we’re not necessarily going to involve the pathologists. We’re using AI tools,” Liu said.

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“Our lab does a lot of computational work to develop AI algorithms to help diagnose these images. That’s necessary because if a pathologist were to diagnose these images, it would take a long time, and these are massive data sets, but with AI, hopefully can do that very rapidly within the operating room,” he furthered.

In the first few years of the study, the moonshot funding will help develop the microscope technology – including a prototype and a clinical version built by a startup in Seattle.

In the second phase of the study, in three to five years, researchers will conduct the clinical validation phase where surgeons will use the technology.

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In a statement announcing the funding, Sen. Cantwell said this research will provide “real hope” for people diagnosed with cancer, noting just last year, nearly 45,000 Washingtonians were diagnosed with the disease.

“With this funding, the University of Washington is developing technology that could let surgeons better determine in real time whether a tumor removal surgery left any cancerous cells behind – all while the patient is still on the table. This groundbreaking research led by the UW would improve cancer treatment and patient outcomes, and ultimately save lives,” Cantwell said.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) added, “The cutting-edge work happening at UW will help doctors get a full, accurate picture of the tumors they are working to treat, so they can make sure patients get the most effective care possible.”

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