An innovative mix of latex and nanoparticles originally designed in the lab of mechanical engineering Professor Elisabeth Smela to give robots “skin” to sense their environments could now provide a critical early warning of breast cancer.
The flexible coating, which senses pressure through changes in electrical resistance, lines a bra-like garment that can “feel” cancerous lumps before the disease spreads. Under development as a prototype, the idea was spurred by a conversation with a doctor in India who has too many patients and too few trained assistants to do manual breast exams.
Medical personnel without specialized training in developing countries could use a simple, low-cost “smart bra,” sensing lumps within seconds of the garment being donned. “We’re looking for something that would alert to the presence of stage 2 cancer when it is still treatable,” Smela said.
The project was part of the MPact Challenge, devised by then-A. James Clark School of Engineering Dean Darryll J. Pines (now UMD president) to celebrate the school’s 125th anniversary in 2019 with a range of creative and impactful engineering projects, and funded in part by the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation.
