Courtesy James Dyson Award The sKan, a skin cancer detecting device
A low cost and non-invasive device that can detect skin cancer has won this year's international James Dyson Award.
The sKan was invented by four Canadian engineering graduates from Ontario's McMaster University.
The handheld device is made from widely available and inexpensive components and could make detection of the disease more accessible.
The World Health Organization says one in every three cancer cases diagnosed worldwide is a skin cancer.
Dyson company founder James Dyson said the sKan received the award because it is "a very clever device with the potential to save lives around the world".
The James Dyson Award has been open to university or recent design graduates across the world since 2002 and celebrates significant, practical and commercially viable designs.
The four Canadian students behind the award winning design
The sKan began as final year engineering class project for four medical and bioengineering undergraduates: Michael Takla, Rotimi Fadiya, Prateek Mathur and Shivad Bhavsar.
They were awarded C$50,000 to develop the device, which uses temperature sensors to help in the early detection of melanoma, the mostly deadly form of skin cancer. Because cancerous cells have a higher metabolic rate than normal tissue cells, cancerous tissue warms at a faster rate than non-cancerous tissue when the tissue - in this case skin - is cooled.
The goal is to select patients who should be sent for a biopsy as early detection is key for the treatment of melanoma.
The team plans to use the funds to build a new prototype that can be used in pre-clinical testing.
In Canada, more than 80,000 cases of skin cancer are diagnosed each year. Of those, more than 5,000 are melanoma.
In the US, there are over 5.4 million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer treated each year, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
Around 87,000 new cases of invasive melanoma will be diagnosed this year, the organization says.
We should keep supporting and funding research by brilliant young students. They are our brighter future.
This is just wonderful , we need to hear more about the young people that's making their mark in the world .
ReplyDeleteIt the media would give these young people credit and keep them in / on the headline news / newspapers , that would give their peers something to look forward to instead of the kiliing and wrong doing that is in the news .
Good post ,
Love Witchy
PS: didn't get the stats this week , The stat counter team said they will continue to send them as soon as I get my email address to the one I signed up with , that was 10 years ago . Odham says he will send me an email explaining .
The cubs say hello
McMaster is a wonderful university. Faj was a biochemist and teacher there. Some of our grandkids studied there and I attended for one semester but had to leave to take care of my kids.
ReplyDeleteThey are very innovative and allow students a lot of latitude and freedom to follow their theories to a conclusion. You are so right... we forget that there are positive things happening out there.
Hello cubs, like the farmer said to the potato..."Dig ya Later."
Love Shadow