Proteomics and Cancer Detection.

CANCER diagnosis; UNITED States. Food & Drug Administration; CANCER in women; OVARIAN cancer; DIAGNOSTIC reagents & test kits; CLINICAL pathology

Much like a grocery store cashier swipes a cereal box over a simple bar code reader to get a price, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists send blood and tissue through a sophisticated bar coder to read protein patterns. These patterns are helping researchers to detect earlystage cancers and changes in cancer cells that could aid doctors in choosing an appropriate treatment for their patients. Using proteomics, the study of proteins in living cells, scientists at the FDA and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have developed a finger-stick blood test that may help detect ovarian cancer before it has spread outside the ovary. The test requires only one drop of blood to detect specific patterns of proteins that signify cancerous cells. Using a sensitive analytical method called mass spectrometry, the scientists sort the proteins by weight and electrical charge, resulting in what looks like a bar code, or a fingerprint, of each protein. Using computers to read the line patterns, scientists can discriminate a cancerous cell from a normal cell. In addition to detecting protein patterns in blood, FDA and NCI scientists have developed a type of protein array technology for analyzing the cellular "wiring diagram" from only a few hundred cells. Using a laser microscope they developed to pluck cells from tissue and magnify them, the investigators can analyze the proteins by their protein arrays.