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In addition to its popularity as Black History Month, February is also recognized as National Cancer Prevention Month. Time to highlight a study that is “still in its infancy” but gaining traction in the area of cancer research.  
 
Last fall, Jeff Darabi, PhD, a professor in the department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering in Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s School of Engineering (SOE) traveled to Chennai, India to present research on microfluidic-based technologies for isolation and detection of circulating tumor cells. His talk was entitled “Dielectrophoretic/Magnetophoretic-based Microfluidic Devices for Cell and Bioparticle Separation.” 
 
The three-day Indian Conference on Micro nano fluidics (ICOM 2023) hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras was held Sept. 29 through Oct. 1, 2023. This was the first international conference on microfluidics held in India, a country that reports less incidents of cancer diagnosis than the United States, but sees cases currently on the rise.

“In collaboration with Professor Joseph Schober of School of Pharmacy, we have developed a microfluidic chip for early detection of circulating tumor cells from peripheral blood and successfully demonstrated isolation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells with a recovery of greater than 82%,” said Darabi. “However, a lot of funding and resources are needed to pursue some of the ideas that we have in mind to further advance this technology.” 

Darabi is a recipient of SIUE’s 2019 Paul Simon Outstanding Teacher-Scholar award. His overall research has resulted in more than 80 publications and Darabi has provided research experiences to dozens of undergraduate and graduate students. Over the course of his academic career, Darabi has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on research grants totaling approximately one million dollars.  
 
“The conference was great and very informative, and speakers were top-notch from around the world,” said Darabi. “I think my talk was well received judging by the questions from the audience, especially students and postdocs that continued into coffee breaks and even through email after my return to the US.” 
 
This was Darabi’s first visit to India. He shared with conference attendees that the preliminary results of his groundbreaking research are “promising.” 

PHOTOS: Jeff Darabi, PhD, professor in the SOE’s department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering and attendees of the Indian Conference on Micro nano fluidics (ICOM 2023)