Jellyfish Cells Used to Diagnose Hard to Find Cancers

The following article will be featured on an upcoming episode of "Dr. Asa on Call" with Dr. Asa Andrew

Most of us never think of jellyfish except as an annoying marine creature with stingers that may catch us unaware at the beach. But scientists in Great Britain believe that the luminous proteins within the cells of jellyfish that make them glow could help in the fight against cancer by offering earlier diagnoses of the disease, the BBC reported.

But how? Basically, researchers based at the Yorkshire Cancer Research Laboratory at the University of York have discovered that when proteins from luminous jellyfish cells are injected into humans the cancer cells essentially "light up," making them visible to a special camera that can then identify the presence and location of tumors within the body.

"Cancers deep within the body are difficult to spot at an early stage," lead researcher Professor Norman Maitland says, "and early diagnosis is critical for the successful treatment of any form of cancer." Early diagnoses may be more possible if Maitland's initial research can be put into practice in the future.

Maitland claims his work is actually building on earlier research by American chemists Roger Tsien with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Osamu Shimomura with Boston University Medical School, and Martin Chalfie with Columbia University, who together won a Nobel Prize in 2008, in part for Shimomura's work in taking luminous cells from the crystal jellyfish and then isolating the luminescent GFP protein from those cells. Tsien told AOL Health this afternoon that he could not comment on Maitland's work without a published study to review. He did remark however, that "there are some major fundamental obstacles to the approach as it has been described [in press reports], and without a proper scientific paper, it is impossible to tell whether the Maitland lab has somehow overcome these problems."

The Yorkshire team reportedly used an altered form of the GFP protein to make it show up red or blue instead of green, inserted it into viruses designed to hone in on cancer cells, and then found that the protein lights up as the viruses grow and spread within the cancer cells. The research shows it might be possible to replicate the technique in humans one day, allowing for earlier detection of cancerous tumors that are not currently visible to modern imaging equipment.

Dr. Ravindra Pandey, a research professor at the State University of New York and professor of cellular stress biology at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, told AOL Health he thinks the research coming out of Great Britain holds great promise. "This may enable us to find tumors that are deeply seated," he says, pointing out that current technology, such as MRIs, allow for good resolution but aren't very sensitive.

Pandey thinks these fluorescent proteins might be especially useful in determining the location and size of brain tumors, where surgeons often have difficulty determining the margins of a tumor and can fail to remove all the cancer cells as a result.

"When a specially developed camera is switched on, the proteins just flare up, and you can see where the cancer cells are," Maitland said.

The only problem is the special camera required for the task is made by only one company based in the U.S., and a single camera costs around $800,000. Maitland is working to raise money to purchase one of the cameras and hopes his new method of cancer detection will be ready for clinical trials within five years.

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