Early detection and effective treatment of cancer are critical to improving patient survival outcomes. The rapid advancement of machine learning (ML), particularly deep learning, has led to significant improvements in the accuracy and efficiency of cancer screening, detection, and monitoring.

However, despite these advances, ML-based approaches face a significant limitation: the substantial computational resources required for the analysis and interpretation of medical images.

That is what the COST Action TETRA is about, the metamaterial formalism approach to recognise cancer. Collaborative research that brings together experts in biophotonics, computer science, imaging instrumentation, cell biology and pathology to explore the application of an alternative approach to automated cancer detection, based on the metamaterial formalism approach. This is an artificial tissue-like specially designed material to interact with cancer cells or tumors in a controlled way and then use mathematical models to describe what happens.

The focus is to improve methods for imaging biomedical tissues, develop new ways to digitize and understand them, and create and test algorithms to automatically detect cancerous areas.

TETRA transforms a complex expert dependent process into a streamlined data driven system, supporting clinicians, improving accuracy and ultimately contributing to better patients’ diagnosis.

TETRA researchers have been recently highlighted for their innovative research on AI assisted microwave and metamaterial systems designed for early-stage cancer detection.

Prof. Dr Muharrem Karaaslan and Assoc. Prof. Dr Fatih Özkan Alkurt, both TETRA Management Committee members, developed a system capable of detecting tumors as small as approximately 5 millimeters in organ phantoms, including breast and testicular tissue. Technology offers a cost-effective and accessible diagnostic aid for medical professionals, demonstrating how TETRA’s collaborative framework can translate innovative research into real-world healthcare solutions.

“This work reflects our long term effort to transform metamaterial and microwave technologies into practical tools for biomedical applications. Our recent results demonstrate potential of microwave based metamaterial systems for detecting small tumour like structures including masses as small as 5 mm. While our broader goal remains developing affordable technologies that can support physicians and contribute to earlier cancer detection. This includes work supported by TÜSEB on testicular cancer detection, alongside our ongoing breast cancer researches.

Being part of COST TETRA network has been particularly valuable in this process. Cancer detection is a highly interdisciplinary challenge, requiring expertise from electromagnetics, metamaterials, biomedical imaging, artificial intelligence, physics and medicine. TETRA provides an exceptional environment where researchers from different fields and countries can exchange ideas, develop common methodologies and establish new collaborations. This network has helped us connect engineering expertise with biomedical challenges and turn complementary knowledge into meaningful research with real clinical potential.” Prof. Dr Muharrem Karaaslan, Iskenderun Technical University, Türkiye.

“Our path to biomedical sensing grew directly from years of work in textile metamaterials, radar absorbing structures and antenna systems – a reminder that fundamental engineering research often finds its most meaningful applications where least expected. By combining carefully designed electromagnetic structures with experimental tumour phantoms and data analysis, we are working towards low cost and noninvasive technologies that may support future cancer screening and diagnostic approaches.

The TETRA network has been central to taking this research beyond the boundaries of a single discipline or laboratory. Interactions with researchers in biomedical imaging, physics, materials science, artificial intelligence and medicine have allowed us to approach the same scientific challenges from genuinely complementary perspectives. For us, TETRA demonstrates how international scientific cooperation can turn diverse expertise into collaborative research with meaningful societal impact.”Assoc. Prof. Dr Fatih Özkan Alkurt, Iskenderun Technical University, Türkiye.

This strong network has already led to new research projects and major funding success. Through approved grant applications, members of the Action have collectively attracted approximately €2 million in external research funding. Prof. Tatjana Gric, TETRA Action Chair awarded €360k to the NextGenerationEU grant to advance innovative solutions for future healthcare. A fund dedicated to the acquisition of advanced imaging equipment supporting research at the intersection of metamaterials, electromagnetic technologies and biomedical imaging.

It directly strengthens our emerging ‘Metamaterial Medicine’ research direction and our efforts to translate metamaterial concepts into technologies relevant to biomedical imaging and cancer research. In addition, five major research grants secured by Turkish members of the TETRA Management Committee, already highlighted through the microwave and metamaterial systems for early-stage cancer detection and covered by Spanish media.

These externally funded projects focus particularly on advanced sensor and stealth technologies and constitute another substantial component of the external funding attracted by researchers participating in the TETRA network.

“Through TETRA, we are bringing together researchers from physics, photonics, engineering, artificial intelligence and medicine around a shared ambition: to rethink how we characterise biological tissues and detect cancer. By applying the principles of metamaterials to medicine, we are creating a new interdisciplinary framework that connects fundamental science with emerging diagnostic technologies. What makes TETRA particularly powerful is its network, combining expertise across Europe and beyond to turn an unconventional scientific idea into collaborative research, new tools and, ultimately, approaches that could contribute to earlier and more precise cancer detection,” says Prof. Tatjana Gric, TETRA Action Chair, from Vilniaus Gedimino Technikos Universitetas, Lithuania.

The Action received an additional £0.9 million ECCS–EPSRC grant under the lead of the Action Vice-Chair, Prof. Edik Rafailov for the project Compact High-Power 3 Micrometer Light Source for Biomedical Applications, that is being undertaken with Stony Brook University. It focuses on developing a compact high-power mid-infrared laser source for biomedical applications, including tissue ablation and bioprinting.

This represents an important achievement and illustrates how networking, knowledge exchange, and collaborations facilitated through COST can contribute to successful follow-up research initiatives. It also provides a tangible indication of the Action’s leverage effect and its potential to generate sustainable scientific collaborations beyond the duration of the Action.

Furthermore, over the past two years, TETRA COST Action has demonstrated strong scientific productivity. TETRA has developed into a collaborative research network of more than 260 participants from more than 40 countries, with Action members contributing to more than 67 scientific publications across fields ranging from metamaterials, photonics and tissue optics to biomedical imaging, mathematical modelling, spectroscopy, artificial intelligence and cancer research.

Beyond publications, the network helps researchers share knowledge across disciplines and countries, giving early-career researchers access to expertise, training, labs, international collaborations, and mobility opportunities.

TETRA network has also developed a new research-oriented digital tool to support the collection of standardised, non-invasive optical data for cancer-related research. Using a smartphone camera, the application enables participating researchers to acquire fingertip optical measurements together with appropriately labelled research information and export structured datasets for subsequent analysis.

The current clinical cohort pilot is designed to assess data quality, reproducibility and feasibility across participating research groups, with the longer-term aim of investigating whether such easily accessible optical measurements, combined with artificial intelligence and the TETRA metamaterial-inspired framework, could contribute to new approaches for tissue characterization and cancer research. BioScan is currently a research prototype and is not intended for clinical diagnosis.

Other key achievements include standardised biological-tissue imaging methods, a public TETRA tissue-image repository, and new mathematical approaches for characterising complex biological structures, to name a few.

During the next phase, TETRA will focus increasingly on integration and validation: connecting experimental measurements with mathematical models, identifying quantitative tissue biomarkers, advancing physics-informed artificial intelligence, and strengthening clinical and stakeholder engagement.

The network will also continue developing cancer-classification methodologies and address regulatory and ethical considerations relevant to future translation.

COST Action webpage
TETRA website tetra-meta.com
The network on LinkedIn