Australian scientists using the world's most powerful X-ray sources to probe the atomic realm have discovered that breast cancer can be diagnosed from changes to the structure of a single hair.
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| X-rays have discovered that breast cancer can be diagnosed from changes to the structure of a single hair. |
An international team of scientists, including Dr David Cookson, a physicist at ANSTO this week published their research in the prestigious journal, Nature.
The work was supported by the Federal Government-funded Australian Synchrotron Research Program (ASRP), a consortium of Australian universities, ANSTO and CSIRO. The results could lead to a better method for screening for breast cancer. Dr Richard Garrett, a physicist at ANSTO and manager of the ASRP, says Australia does not have its own synchrotron, or intense source of X-rays.
"There are lower power X-ray sources in Australia, but the ASRP gives the elite group of Australian scientists working in the field access to the world's leading synchrotron facilities," he said.
"This research into breast cancer diagnosis is one of the first pay-offs from Australia's investment in the ASRP and underlines the importance of synchrotron technology.
"X-rays are complementary to neutron studies enabled by research reactors in examining the structure of materials," Dr Garrett said.
"Synchrotrons are large electron accelerators. They generate high intensity X-rays that can probe matter at the atomic level with a resolution of less than a millionth of a millimetre. They are one of the driving forces of the biotechnology revolution that is spawning new drugs and therapies, and unlocking the secrets of proteins - the giant molecules that are the building blocks of life."
"The X-rays strike the sample and are scattered by the electrons in it," said ANSTO's Dr Cookson, speaking from Chicago.
"We can work out the structure from the scattering pattern." The breast cancer research rested on images of hair resolved to the molecular level. The images wer generated at the Australian National Beamline Facility at the world-class synchrotron known as the Photon Factory in Tsukuba Science City, Japan, and at the Advanced Photon Source synchrotron at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago.
"We can work out the structure from the scattering pattern." The breast cancer research rested on images of hair resolved to the molecular level. The images wer generated at the Australian National Beamline Facility at the world-class synchrotron known as the Photon Factory in Tsukuba Science City, Japan, and at the Advanced Photon Source synchrotron at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago.
The team, led by Dr Veronica James, of the University of Sydney and the Australian National University, compared the structure of hair from women with breast cancer with that of women without the disease. Dr Cookson, a specialist in synchrotron radiation, produced images showing clear differences in hair structure between the two groups. But Dr James stresses that further research will be needed before the method can graduate to the clinical stage. Dr Cookson says Australia is joining the vanguard of synchrotron-based research, which is also central to the development of new materials.
Published: 05/03/1999