Mass spec pen detects cancer

This isn’t what first comes to mind—a mass spectrometer reduced to the size of a pen.  Rather it is a tissue sampler the works with a mass spec machine, and does so in 10 seconds.  According to the developers at the University of Texas at Austin: “The device rapidly identifies the molecular profile of tissue exposed during a surgery by first depositing a small droplet of water on the tissue surface for about three seconds. Next, the droplet is transferred to the mass spectrometer, where molecules from the tissue are identified. Finally, machine learning algorithms comb through the molecular information and provide a predictive diagnosis that surgeons can act on.”  With that, a surgeon can determine the difference between cancerous and healthy tissue during an operation. MORE

Image Credit:   University of Texas at Austin News