Benjamin Sanchez Terrones, an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and member of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, has been awarded the Innovation in Cancer Engineering Partnership Seed Grant. This collaborative grant was presented by the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the University of Utah College of Engineering. The Sanchez Research Lab will utilize this grant to test a painless bioimpedance technology for diagnosing and monitoring treatment in patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).
The Mayo Clinic defines AML as “a cancer of the blood and bone marrow—the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made.” AML progresses quickly and affects myeloid cells, “a type of white blood cell that usually develops into various types of mature blood cells, including red and white blood cells and platelets.”
AML is the most common form of leukemia in adults, but it has a low long-term survival rate: approximately 30% of patients survive long-term. To diagnose and monitor AML, doctors use bone marrow biopsies where a sample of the bone marrow is aspirated with a needle drilled into the bone. While these tests are regarded as safe, they are invasive and can only be performed intermittently, which limits the ability of the physician to monitor continuously the progression of disease and treatment response.
Sanchez Terrones plans to utilize the funding from the Innovation in Cancer Engineering Partnership Seed Grant to further his work at the Sanchez Research Lab, where he and his researchers will “test non-invasive, painless bioimpedance technology that [they] have developed in [the] lab as an adjunctive test to standard bone marrow biopsies.” The lab hopes that this test will help reduce the need for invasive bone marrow biopsies.
Sanchez Terrones is eager to continue his work and advance the future of AML diagnosis and treatment. He is grateful to Huntsman Cancer Institute and the University of Utah John and Marcia Price College of Engineering for their support.
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Written by Logan Little.