A new step in fighting cancer could be worms. Scientists are working on a chip with actual Nematodes in it.
I first thought they meat chip as in computer chip and somehow the worms were tied into the chip in a weird cyborg work kind of way. And then I thought that it would be put in your body and work that way somehow. No.
The “chip” is a flat piece of plastic with with a central chamber that holds the tiny worms. There are also two wells connected to the where the worms are. When they place liquid with cancer cells in one chamber and liquid without cancer in the other, the worms would go to the cancer cells 70% of the time. Lung cancer cells create a compound that nematodes are drawn to because of its smell. A lot of times, signs of lung cancer don’t show up until late stages. The hope is that doctors would be able to use saliva or urine from a patient and the worms would be able to help detect any cancer cells at an early stage.