TAG | Star Trek tricorder device may someday smell skin cancer |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Friday, 22 August 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 The American Chemical Society (ACS) press release (August 20, 2008) “First detection of odor profile for skin cancer may lead to rapid, non-invasive diagnostic test” reports on this research. Within the ACS article, Michelle Gallagher (a senior scientist and analytical chemist at Rohm and Haas in Spring House, Pennsylvania) and colleagues report on a technique that allow scientists to distinguish between odors given off by the human body that involve skin cancer and others that are free from skin cancer. Today, skin cancer is diagnosed by the invasive practice of removing part of the skin, in the form of a biopsy. Gallagher states, within the ACS release, “Researchers have speculated that tumors give off different odors, but we're the first to identify and quantify the compounds involved in skin cancer odors.” As Gallagher states above, the research performed by her team is the first time such chemical analysis of skin cancer has been attempted by the science community. It is based on other research involving dogs. (Other odor-sensing techniques have been tested in the recent past to detect lung cancer, for instance.) In fact, the study’s results mention that in the past dogs have been trained to detect skin tumors and, now, based on this smelling ability, these scientists have developed a similiar technique. Specifically, the Gallagher team used a group of methods called advanced chromatography to analyze the air (and separate its components) above cancer sites. Page two continues this discussion. |
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