Canadian researchers have developed a prototype microchip that could one day lead to a portable device that could diagnose cancer in 30 minutes.

The chip uses nanotechnology — wires and materials on the scale of a billionth of a metre — to detect chemical markers that indicate the presence of cancer, as well as the cancer's type and severity.

The microchip, developed by scientists and engineers at the University of Toronto, Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto and Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., has been successfully tested on prostate cancer patients.

"Our team was able to measure biomolecules on an electronic chip the size of your fingertip and analyze the sample within half an hour," said U of T's Shana Kelly, a professor of pharmacy and medicine, and lead author of the study, which appears in the Nature Nanotechnology.

Currently, analysis of biomarkers for cancer diagnosis takes days. The biomarkers can distinguish different types of cancer and between benign and aggressive forms of cancer.

Analyzing patient samples, such as a urine sample, for cancer biomolecules can provide early detection and treatment, and is less invasive than surgical biopsies.

Biomarkers can also let doctors know if a cancer treatment is working, said Tom Hudson, president of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

"The discovery by Dr. Kelley and her team offers the possibility of a faster, more cost-effective technology that could be used anywhere," Hudson said in a statement.

The chip is now entering the engineering stage, with an eye to creating a portable device that could provide an analysis within a half hour.

"The instrumentation required for this analysis can be contained within a unit the size of a BlackBerry," said Kelley.

And because biomarkers aren't unique to cancer, chips of this type could also be used to diagnose infectious diseases, such as HIV, bacterial infections or swine flu, the researchers suggest.

The engineering team, led by Ted Sargent, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of Toronto, found that conventional metal electrical sensors weren't able to detect the biomarkers, which are present only at very low concentrations in patient samples.

The team developed the chip and added a nanometre-sized wire mesh and molecular "bait" to help the chip detect the biomarkers.