QUEENSLAND – A Bangladeshi Muslim scientist at the University of Queensland, Australia has invented a ground-breaking cancer test that would revolutionize cancer detection in a new method as easy as a blood test, 5PillarsUK reported.

“The new testing method is based on a unique DNA signature that appears to be common across cancer types,” Abu Ali Ibn Sina and his two colleagues wrote on the website of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The team of researchers published their results on December 4 in the scientific journal ‘Nature Communications’. However, their test will be commercially available in hospitals and healthcare centers after required clinical trials.

Each cancer type, be it bowel, testicular or breast, has different genetic features. Usually, a test that detects one cancer type may not work to identify another. Thus, for many year researchers have been searching for a commonality among the variations of cancer to develop a diagnostic tool that could apply across all types.

“Our research has found that cancer DNA forms a unique structure when placed in water. The structure is the same in DNA from samples of breast, prostate and bowel cancers, as well as lymphoma. We used this discovery to develop the test that can identify the cancerous DNA in less than ten minutes,” the crew stated in the WEF.

Ibn Sina teaches at the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Sylhet, Bangladesh, and was appointed by Professor Matt Trau as a fellow researcher at the University of Queensland.

The researchers added that they’ve tested more than 200 tissue and blood samples, with 90% accuracy. “Because the methylation pattern is similar across all cancers it’s likely that the DNA will respond in the same way,” Ibn Sina explained.

The next step is to do a large clinical study to understand how early cancer can be identified based on the DNA signature.

The researcher concluded: “We’re assessing the possibility to detect different cancer types from different body fluids from early to later stages of cancer.”

Many Muslims made scientific breakthroughs in 2018.

The hijabi Turkish Muslim astrophysicist Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil shares her name with a rare double ring of stars at 359 million light-years away from us.

Because of her achievement, Mutlu-Pakdil was named in the ‘2018 Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World – Academic Leadership and Accomplishment’.

Medical Discovery News: Brilliant Muslim Contributions to Science