Riyadh: A Saudi female engineer, Dana Al-Sulaiman, who works as an Assistant Professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has won the ‘Innovators under 35’ award, for developing a chip that detects different types of cancer in human body, local media reported.
Dana Al-Sulaiman explained to Alekhbariya channel about her innovation, saying, “It is a small chip made of micro needles covered with a substance that is placed on the skin, and it is able to absorb liquid, and detect cancer biomarkers in an easy and non-invasive way.”
Al-Sulaiman also indicated that the innovation was granted a US patent, and the technology is currently being developed and manufactured from sustainable materials at King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia, and then it will be delivered to doctors in all hospitals soon.
“The reason that prompted me to create the slide is the painful and tedious process of the traditional way where a sample is taken from the patient,”Dana Al-Sulaiman added.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) congratulated Dana Al-Sulaiman, for her innovation of a hydrogel-coated, functional microneedle platform that helps in rapid, non-invasive sampling and discovery of cancer bio-parameters from the interstitial tissue of the skin.
‘Innovators Under 35’ seeks to honor technical experts, male and female researchers, male and female scientists, whose age does not exceed 35 years.
The conditions for nomination for the award include a wide range of fields, including biomedicine, computing and communications, energy, materials science, software and even transportation, the Internet, and more, where the innovations and research they have accomplished can make a qualitative leap in our contemporary world.
