Lasers, Vapors and Disease Makers: Assessing Health from a Microscopic Level

Everyone is familiar with sickness and disease. We all know what it feels like - maybe a runny nose, maybe aching joints or unexplained exhaustion, maybe a host of additional symptoms. Now scientists are reporting development of a better way to understand the differences between healthy cells and diseased cells.

In ACS' Analytical Chemistry, Akos Vertes and Bindesh Shrestha describe a new technique that uses laser pulses to explode cells and turn their contents into vapor. A lab instrument then analyzes the vapor and establishes a profile of the chemicals. The process, the scientists say, can reveal differences in the health of cells.

Previously the only way to examine insides of cells was to remove them from their natural environment, which always disturbed them, making it difficult to identify changes between healthy cells and diseased ones.

Click here for more on their research.

Image courtesy of the American Chemical Society