Australian scientists have just developed a cancer test that researchers believe could save millions of lives all over the world.

The thing that makes cancer so complicated is that there are so many different types of it. That’s why it’s so groundbreaking that these scientists have managed to find and identify a unique biomarker that was present in every type of cancer they studied, including prostate, colorectal, lymphoma, and many forms of breast cancer.

They concluded that healthy patients have small molecules called methyl groups that are spread across DNA structures. The presence of cancer dramatically impacts these groups, so the patterns and clusters of methyl groups will change their formations when it is there. The experts were able to make a simple tool that is able to find and identify these pattern changes in just ten minutes.

“In healthy cells, these methyl groups are spread out across the genome, but the genomes of cancer cells are essentially barren except for intense clusters of methyl groups at very specific locations,” said Dr. Laura Carrascosa, one of the University of Queensland researchers who developed this.

Professor Matt Trau explained they found that the clusters of methyl groups placed in a solution caused cancer DNA fragments to fold into unique three-dimensional nanostructures that could easily be separated by sticking to solid surfaces, like gold.

“We designed a simple test using gold nanoparticles that instantly change color to determine if the 3D nanostructures of cancer DNA are present,” said Trau. “So we were very excited about an easy way of catching these circulating free cancer DNA signatures in blood. Discovering that cancerous DNA molecules formed entirely different 3D nanostructures from normal circulating DNA was a breakthrough that has enabled an entirely new approach to detect cancer non-invasively in any tissue type – including blood.”

“This led to the creation of [our] inexpensive and portable detection devices that could eventually be used as a diagnostic tool, possibly with a mobile phone,” he added.

When tested on two hundred humans, this technology was 90 percent accurate in finding cancer.

“Cancer is a complicated disease, [and currently] every type has a different testing and screening system,” said co-researcher Dr. Abu Sina. “In most cases, there is no general test to test their status. Now, people only go [to get checked out] if they have symptoms. We want [cancer screening] to be part of a regular checkup.”

Trau cautioned people not to get too excited about this yet, but it is certainly a huge jump forward in treating cancer.

“We certainly don’t know yet whether it’s the holy grail for all cancer diagnostics, but it looks really interesting as an incredibly simple universal marker of cancer, and as an accessible and inexpensive technology that doesn’t require complicated lab-based equipment like DNA sequencing,” he said.