NEW "DNA TENTACLES" inspired by JELLYFISH used to FIGHT CANCER!!

Tiny strands of DNA that float like jellyfish tentacles can grab and hold tumour cells in the bloodstream, which may in the future help cancer patients fight the dreaded disease.

The device can be used to both count and sort cancer cells, which is an important indicator of how well chemotherapy or other treatments are working. Doctors need to know whether cancer cells are being knocked out or developing immunity.

"The key is to know which drugs the remaining cells would be most susceptible to," says Jeffrey Karp, an author on the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"Often these cells in the blood stream are at very low concentrations and it's difficult to isolate them. What you really want to do is collect them and study the biology of the cells and subject them to different kinds of chemo so you know which one is best to use."

Karp says he's been stung by jellyfish before while swimming with his son: "It doesn't do much damage, but it really hurts."

[link to www.abc.net.au]