Skip to content

Guest Thinkers — November 19, 2011

Stopping Cancer Before it Starts

Deep in the heart of the cell, your DNA may be undergoing subtle changes that could lead to a devastating disease several years down the line. Scientists want to detect those changes.

bigthinkeditors

What’s the Latest Development?

A new medical technique which examines how cells interact with light can possibly spot mutations in DNA that forecast diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. Called partial wave spectroscopic microscopy, the technique is particularly good at detecting changes in density in complexes like chromatin, a mix of DNA and proteins which changes in response to carcinogens or ultraviolet rays. A change in the density of chromatin, for example, may signal one is at higher risk for contracting skin cancer.

What’s the Big Idea?

To understand where cancer comes from and why it develops, scientists are looking to the body’s cell structure at the nano level. DNA mutations that may forecast disease “involve tweaks to structures that are less than 400 nanometres across, which is smaller than the wavelength of the visible light used in ordinary optical microscopy.” The hope is that partial wave spectroscopic microscopy could be used to screen the general population for early signs of cancer.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

Related

a computer generated image of a human brain.

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

jwst Abell 2744 450 million

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Antibiotics that Fight Superbugs

As scientists gain a better understanding of how antibiotics work on a molecular level, they are learning how some superbugs become resistant. Can they also find a weakness?