A Molecular Communication System in Blood Vessels for Tumor Detection

This paper shows a proposal of a biological nano-communication system established in a blood vessel, aiming to support the detection and treatment of tumors. This system could either be used for diagnostic purposes in the early stage of a disease or to check any relapse of a previous disease already treated. In our proposal, the tumor detection happens through revealing tumor biomarkers on the cell surface, such as the CD47 protein. This detection takes advantage of some recent proposal if implementing nanorobot transport systems through modified flagellated bacteria. When a biomarker is detected, a molecular communication system is used for distributing the information over a number of nano-machines. These machines have a size similar to the white blood cells, so that they can flow through the vessel at the speed of the largest particles. The transported information is detected extra-body, through the use of smart probes, which triggers a decision tree in order to estimate the nature of the tumor and its most likely location.