(12/7/98)

Physicists have developed a radical new procedure which analyzes blood and cell abnormalities instantly. Science Specialist Ed Yeates says this is science fiction turned real in the art of diagnosing disease.

It takes days, even a week to get the results of a blood test - a worrisome wait if you're being tested for a potentially life-threatening disease. While we still haven't reached as far as Star Trek - where docs fictionally wave an electronic wand over the body -- a government lab in New Mexico has come pretty close.

Physicist Paul Gourley, with Sandia National Laboratory, has invented a new tool called a biocavity laser - which spots abnormal cells immediately. "It's a new laser microchip that can speed health care delivery," he explains. "So the physician, rather than having to draw the blood and then send it out to some reference lab, could draw a very tiny amount of blood, put it into the laser, and analyze it very quickly so they could diagnose the condition of the patient and give them that instantaneous feedback."

Here's how it works. A cell is placed into the laser. Light shines back and forth, sampling the cell hundreds of times. Gourley says, "If there is a subtle biochemical component in the cells, they the speed of light will change and there will be a small shift in the frequency."

The laser eliminates the need to prepare cells for better visibility - and that reduces the cost to the patient. Gourley's brother, Mark, at Washington Hospital Center is helping test the device. He says, "You don't have to stain it, you don't have to freeze it, you don't have to cut it. You put it in just by itself and the sensitivity of this technique is enormous. You can look at one cell and discover a lot of information, whereas other techniques may require hundreds of millions of cells."