• Question: Do you think you are close to making the blood test work?

    Asked by samk to Sarah on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Yes I’m pretty close! It’s so exciting! At the moment I am testing lots of different fluorophores to see which ones give the best fluorescence. Once I have the strongest fluorescence, I will test the dye with lots of different cancer chemicals. Then I will have to ask people that have different types and different stages of cancer to please donate some of their blood to my research. Then I can try the blood test and try lots of different ways of doing it to find the best one. I will also use some of my blood to check that it doesn’t fluoresce as I don’t have cancer. That is called a negative control.

      If everything works then hopefully the blood test can be used to diagnose real patients within the next 5 years. It sounds like a long time, but research takes a lot of time and hard work and actually 5 years isn’t so far away…

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