From the KKKly Mail today:
Hair test to detect breast cancer could be on sale ‘within months’
A revolutionary test that detects the first signs of breast cancer from a few strands of a woman’s hair could be on sale within months.
Having scanned the references from the website of Fermiscan there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the research. I can only assume that when they say on sale they mean to someone with a lot of money. According to there latest paper (free when I tried) they used the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Lab (US), this is a rather large synchrotron and not going to be available for the routine analysis of hair samples.
According to the Daily Hate:
When normal hair is put under a microscope, it appears as series of arcs. In people with breast cancer, a distinctive ring is superimposed on to these arcs, New Scientist magazine reports.
Yet the papers and website all take about synchrotron x-ray diffraction, a bit harder than popping under a microscope. From what I can read of the NS article there’s know mention of microscopes. If anyone can enlighten me please do. This just seems to be the Mail getting excited a little too early. At least this time the research seems to right (cf. MMR) it’s just got a way to go.
Update
I’ve been in contact with the (very nice) people at Fermiscan, once I have permission I’ll post some of their response.
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