Visualizing Cancer Cells in Vivo
January 31, 2012 | Terry Sharrer
Cancer gets its name from the crab because of its resemblance to a mass with many legs. Surgical resection has to remove all the “legs” even though they are nearly impossible to see down to the last cell. To address this problem, National Cancer Institute researchers have developed a fluorescent spray that targets an enzyme which is abundant in tumor cells, but not in normal ones. When the spray and enzyme interact, the fluorescence agent remains with the cancer cells and shows their location. MORE