Holographic Cell Differentiation in Mixed-Species Populations

Survival rates for most cancers have increased steadily over the past few decades as new technologies have led to better treatment outcomes. However, this process often relies heavily on the detection of cancer in its earliest stages, before symptoms occur or a tumor is visible in a CT or MR image. This is particularly true for diseases such as pancreatic cancer that exhibit almost no symptoms until very late stages and have extremely low survival rates as a result. Even some commonly treatable diseases, such as breast cancer, become far more problematic in later stages. As such, any efforts to improve cancer treatment further will inevitably require the detection of so-called micro-cancer, small clusters of cancer cells that are often manifest as metastatic circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Fortunately, cancerous cells typically exhibit a morphology that is highly distinct from healthy cells, allowing their detection using visible and infrared light that interacts strongly with objects on the scale of a few microns (due to a wavelength of ~500-900 nm)