A lightning-fast laser technique, led by Sandia National Laboratories researcher Paul Gourley, has provided laboratory demonstrations of accurate, real-time, high-throughput identification of liver tumour cells at their earliest stages, and without invasive chemical reagents.

The technique generates a laser beam in single human cells pumped from a flask through tiny microchannels. The beam is altered by what it encounters. These changes, registered by an imaging spectrometer, instantly identify cancer-modified mitochondria in cells gone wrong. Mitochondria are known as the power pack of cells, energizing them like batteries do flashlight bulbs, the release explains.

"There are hundreds of mitochondria, sometimes thousands, in a cell," says Gourley adding, "To see them in the old way requires a time-consuming process like fluorescent tagging or a chemical reagent. We've found we can see them immediately by light alone."

The techniques could be critical to advancing early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.

More technically put, "To rapidly assess the health of a single mammalian cell," says Gourley adding, "the key discovery was the elucidation of biophotonic differences in normal and cancer cells by using intracellular mitochondria as biomarkers for disease. This technique holds promise for detecting cancer at a very early stage and could nearly eliminate delays in diagnosis and treatment."

The technique is effective because "it measures changes in the cell architecture, especially those arising from alterations in protein density, cytoskeleton shape, and distribution of mitochondria - changes that occur when a cell becomes cancerous," says Gourley.

A nano-thin layering of gallium aluminum arsenide combinations send up numerous tiny beams from a small cross-sectional generating area. These beams are reinforced or thwarted by the position and density of the mitochondria, the release added.