Scientists in the UK have designed a new self-assembling nanoparticle that targets tumours and could lead to quicker diagnosis of cancer. Researchers at Imperial College London report that a new self-assembling nanoparticle can adhere to cancer cells, thus making them visible in MRI scans and possibly eliminate the need for invasive tissue biopsies. Report: Mark Nicholls
Professor Hedvig Hricak MD PhD, Chair of the Department of Radiology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York, and Professor of Radiology at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, is a notable expert on crosssectional anatomic and molecular imaging, particularly of gynaecologic and prostate cancers. EH interviewed her about the potential and impact of more precise viewing of inter-…
Imaging tests like mammograms or CT scans can detect tumors, but figuring out whether a growth is or isn’t cancer usually requires a biopsy to study cells directly. Now results of a Johns Hopkins study suggest that MRI could one day make biopsies more effective or even replace them altogether by noninvasively detecting telltale sugar molecules shed by the outer membranes of cancerous cells.
Gideon Ho, CEO and co-founder of Singapore-based HistoIndex is confident: ‘After a biopsy a patient waits in a hospital bed, but now, instead of waiting a couple days until doctors know how to treat this patient, we can deliver results while the patient is still in the hospital.’ Report: John Brosky
A new extracorporeal nanotech device addresses the root cause of sepsis by removing pathogens and endotoxins simultaneously from blood even before their identification – this genetically engineered mannose-binding lectin protein can also latch on to the Ebola virus... Report: Cynthia E Keen
‘The disease “cancer” is increasingly classified into sub-groups. Today, we are already dealing with a number of orphan diseases,’ says Professor Richard Greil MD, head of LIMCR at University Hospital Salzburg.