“What we’d like to do is triage all gynaecological disease – so when someone comes in with a complaint, can we give doctors a tool that quickly tells them it’s more likely to be a cancer or not, or this cancer than that.” -Daniel Heller
AI and Nanotube Sensors: Shaping the Future of Cancer Detection
A recent BBC feature highlights groundbreaking work led by Dr. Daniel Heller, biomedical engineer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — and co-founder of Nine Diagnostics. His team is pioneering the use of carbon nanotube sensors combined with artificial intelligence to detect ovarian cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages.
Why Ovarian Cancer Needs New Approaches
Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed late because symptoms appear only after the disease has already spread. Fewer than half of women survive beyond five years after diagnosis, compared with much higher survival rates for cancers typically caught earlier. Detecting disease years before symptoms emerge could fundamentally change patient outcomes.
The Technology Behind the Breakthrough
Dr. Heller’s team has developed fluorescent nanosensors that respond to complex mixtures of proteins and molecules in blood. These signals create unique molecular “fingerprints” — patterns too subtle for humans to interpret. AI algorithms, however, can decode them. Early tests, even on relatively small patient datasets, have shown better accuracy than today’s leading biomarkers for ovarian cancer. With larger datasets, accuracy and utility are expected to improve further, potentially giving doctors a powerful triage tool within three to five years.
Beyond Cancer: AI in Blood Testing
The BBC article also spotlights broader advances in AI-enabled blood diagnostics — from rapidly identifying pneumonia pathogens to mapping disease risk across massive biobank datasets. The common thread is clear: AI unlocks insights hidden in patterns of biomolecular data that conventional tools cannot detect.
What This Means for Nine Diagnostics
At Nine Diagnostics, we are building on the very same technological foundation — nanosensor platforms and AI-driven pattern recognition — to deliver next-generation diagnostic solutions. Dr. Heller’s leadership in this field underscores both the scientific credibility and transformative potential of this approach.
Our mission is to make biology measurable, so patients reach the right treatment faster. Advances like these highlight why we believe nanosensor-based, AI-driven diagnostics will reshape how medicine detects, monitors, and treats disease.