Nanotechnology vs. cancer: How tiny particles sniff out the deadly disease | Susan Hockfield

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We may be able to detect cancer soon by simply peeing on a stick.

- Cancer is an aberrant function of a normal cell, where the regulators of that cell's dividing are broken and the cell starts to divide without regulation. Left to its own devices, that dividing without regulation will overcome the entire body.

- Until we have a cure, early detection is the holy grail. MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia is currently devising a simple urine test that works just like a pregnancy test to detect cancer the moment it starts.

- How does it work? Nanoparticles are injected into the body that force specific peptides, previously invisible signs of cancer, to be easily detected in urine. In the future, this test may be part of your yearly physical check-up.

Susan Hockfield is a neuroscientist based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2004 to 2012, she served as the 16th president of the university. Hockfield was the first woman, and the first life scientist, to lead the institute. Prior to MIT, she worked at Yale University, where she served in myriad capacities. Among them, the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Provost. She is the author of "The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution" (https://amzn.to/2EfEZMT)

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