Center Uses Laser
Method to See Cancer
Andrew Pollack, The New
York Times, April 19, 2004
The research center, known
as PARC, quietly formed a partnership two
years ago with the Scripps Research Institute
in San Diego. Now, the Scripps-PARC Institute
for Advanced Biomedical Sciences, as the partnership
is known, is announcing its first potential
product: a system based on laser printer technology
to detect cancer cells.
Richard H. Bruce, who
runs biomedical research at PARC, said that
because his organization did not have people
trained in life sciences, it relied on Scripps,
a well-known medical research center in San
Diego, to define the problems to which PARC's
technology could be applied.
One problem was to search
the bloodstream for cells that slough off
tumors. Detecting such cells could allow doctors
to detect cancer early or to monitor the success
of therapy. But such cells exist, Dr. Bruce
said, in concentrations of one in a million
or one in 10 million blood cells, meaning
that 50 million or more cells in the blood
might have to be checked to find them.
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