Scientists are a step closer to developing a Star Trek-style scanner which can pick up signs of disease and give a diagnosis with no more than a wave over the body. They found that x-rays of cancer patients contain patterns which can reveal the genetic profile of their tumours. These genetic fingerprints can then be used to tailor a patient's treatment. The technique gives doctors information on how a patient's cancer is progressing which was previously available only by taking a tissue biopsy. The research team believes the system, at the moment the size of a large garden shed, may eventually be capable of diagnosing diseases other than cancer. "Potentially, one can use imaging directly to reveal multiple features of diseases that will make it much easier to carry out personalised medicine, where you are making diagnoses and treatment decisions based exactly on what is happening in a person," said Howard Chang, a geneticist at Stanford University in California and co-author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The team examined x-rays from patients with liver cancer and identified more than 100 patterns that correspond to levels of gene expression within the tumours. Using only 28 of these patterns, they were able to work out 80% of the tumour's genetic profile, which is made up of more than 5,000 individual genes. The scientists compare their work to the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which enabled archaeologists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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