Word: paints
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When treating cancer with surgery, it's crucial that every bit of the disease has been removed; but spotting cancer cells left behind after a tumor has been removed is difficult. Now, however, researchers at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have created a molecular "paint" that coats cancer cells so doctors can see the wayward ones that they might otherwise miss...
...paint is a blend of chlorotoxin derived from the scorpion (nonpoisonous to humans) and a fluorescent molecule that emits near-infrared light. The scorpion-derived peptide homes in on the cancer cells and binds to them, bypassing healthy cells, while the fluorescent tag is piggybacked on to the peptide. After doctors excise a tumor, they use a special camera that captures nearinfrared photons to then look at the body and see any stray cells the scalpel left behind. At those wavelengths, light from the fluorescent marker cannot be blocked by blood, other body fluids or even thin bone...
That's especially exciting because painting tumors could also help doctors control cancers before they spread from an organ to the lymph nodes and other tissues. Olson's molecular paint can pick up tumors as small as 200 cells, potentially helping doctors identify, for instance, the micrometastases that can make breast cancer so dangerous. Current techniques like magnetic resonance imaging start detecting tumors at 1 million cells. "It's a way to extend what we can see," says Olson, making all our tools against cancer more powerful...
Then I came across a new report from the Federal Government: Uncle Sam's annual attempt to paint a broad statistical portrait of the nation's young people. In long rows of little numbers printed on page after page of tables, this report told a different story from that of either the woe bearers or the myth busters...
That's especially exciting because painting tumors could also help doctors control cancers before they spread from an organ to the lymph nodes and other tissues. Olson's molecular paint can pick up tumors as small as 200 cells, potentially helping doctors identify, for instance, the micrometastases that can make breast cancer so dangerous. Current techniques like magnetic resonance imaging start detecting tumors at 1 million cells. "It's simply a way to extend what we can see," says Olson, making all our tools against cancer more powerful...