Word: tumors
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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...
...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...
...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. The fluorescent tag is piggybacked onto the peptide. After doctors remove a tumor, they use a special camera that captures near infrared photons to 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...
Perhaps the biggest appeal of these assays, however, has to do with their ease and simplicity. Currently, doctors seeking the same information must collect a sample of the tumor tissue, something that isn't always possible if it's very small or inaccessible or its precise location isn't known. Then there is the danger that the physical act of tissue sampling can dislodge cells and cause them to spread the disease. A blood draw bypasses all these risks...
Brandt emphatically agreed. He said that some unnamed makers openly acknowledged that their industry contained what he refereed to as “tumor promoters...