European Public Health

When removing a tumour, it’s not always easy for a surgeon to decide whether all of the cancer cells have been taken out. The ‘intelligent knife’, or iKnife, can play an important role in this in the future. Researchers from the Maastricht M4I institute are key partners in an international consortium that will validate the method, and have started the second phase of the experiments (in vivo) in a Dutch hospital last fall.

Dr. Tiffany Porta is an assistant professor at M4I and an expert in mass spectrometry imaging. She heads the iKnife project, which is all about ultimately taking the technique to the clinic. Close collaboration with the Maastricht University Medical Centre+ is key, since it is there that the first ‘molecular operating room’ of the Netherlands is implemented.

Read the article if you want to know how the iKnife works.