Detecting cancer in a flash.Even at the cellular level, there's a special glow to good health. That's the conclusion of a research team that has demonstrated the ability to distinguish cancer cells cells once believed to be peculiar to cancers, but now know to be epithelial cells differing in no respect from those found elsewhere in the body, and distinguished only by peculiarity of location and grouping. See also: Cancer from healthy ones with pulses of laser light. To achieve that discrimination, physicist Paul Paul, 1901–64, king of the Hellenes (1947–64), brother and successor of George II. He married (1938) Princess Frederika of Brunswick. During Paul's reign Greece followed a pro-Western policy, and the Cyprus question was temporarily resolved. L. Gourley of Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories, which is managed and operated by the Sandia Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation), is a major United States Department of Energy research and development national laboratory with two locations, one in Albuquerque, New in Albuquerque Albuquerque (ăl`bəkûr'kē), city (1990 pop. 384,736), seat of Bernalillo co., W central N.Mex., on the upper Rio Grande; inc. 1890. , and his colleagues used a novel microchip (1) Another term for a microminiaturized integrated circuit (a "chip"). (2) To insert an RFID tag beneath the skin of an animal. It is expected that some day, humans will be microchipped. laser of their own invention. The laser features an opening through which fluids, including slurries of biological cells, can flow. As each cell passes through this so-called so-called adj. 1. Commonly called: "new buildings ... in so-called modern style" Graham Greene. 2. biocavity laser, it temporarily acts as a lens for the device, stimulating a burst of laser light. In earlier work, the team found that organelles called mitochondria within a cell strongly affect colors and other characteristics of the outgoing pulses. In normal cells, mitochondria are shaped like tiny beans See JavaBeans. and generate the power that cells need (SN: 3/5/05, p. 158). Now the researchers report that cancer cells yield pulses with tints and other optical traits that are detectably different from those of healthy cells. The scientists attribute the differences to changes in mitochondria that occur when a cell becomes cancerous. "The mitochondria in this [cancer] cell are sitting as little balled-up creatures," so they influence light differently, Gourley says. To determine whether tissue is cancerous, oncologists now have to take biopsies of tissue sand subject them to various laboratory tests--a process that can take days or more. "We're trying to eliminate all those steps," says Gourley. He and his colleagues have already tested their method on human and animal tissues, including liver, brain, lung, and muscle samples. The method now requires thousands of cells to reveal cancerous tissue. But the researchers claim it has the potential to identify cancer in a single cell by means of a single light pulse. Ultimately, Gourley says, physicians equipped with surgical tools incorporating the microlaser may immediately identify cancerous cells and treat the disease in the same procedure.--P.W. |
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