So how does this new device work? Cancer affects the metabolic rate of skin cells, with cancerous cells heating up faster than their healthy counterparts following a shock of cold temperature.
To make identifying these cells easier, the McMaster University team comprised of Michael Takla, Rotimi Fadiya, Prateek Mathur and Shivad Bhavsar, built a skin cancer detector with 16 thermistors that can track the rate of temperature increase following a cold shock from an ice pack. The thermistors are simply placed on the potentially cancerous area of skin, and the device produces a heat map that can be used to determine the presence of melanoma.
The team used widely available and inexpensive components, which allows for melanoma skin cancer detection to be readily accessible to many. It is, undoubtedly, a very clever device that has the potential to save lives around the world. Alongside the Dyson Award, the team also received a cash prize of $40,000 to advance their research and they also received $10,000 at the Forge's Student Start-Up Pitch competition in March.
The team was inspired to create sKan after realizing technology hadn't had the same impact on skin cancer diagnosis as it had on other medical fields. They found research that used the thermal properties of cancerous skin tissue as a means of detecting melanoma. But this was done using expensive lab equipment. So they set out to invent a way of performing the same assessment using a more cost-effective solution.
This will be a big leap forward in the area of detecting skin cancer. As the Guardian reported, nearly 39 people are diagnosed with skin cancer every day in the U.K., and the American Cancer Society estimates 87,110 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S. by the end of 2017, with 9,730 people dying from the condition. So, early detection is key to cancer survival - let's hope that sKan succeeds in significantly reducing that number.
Going forward the sKan team hopes to create a more advanced prototype that will allow them to begin pre-clinical testing. “Our aspirations have become a reality,” said Mathur. “Skin cancers are the most common form of cancer worldwide, and the potential to positively impact the lives of those affected is both humbling and motivating.”
Discover more about sKan in the video below:
