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Smart particles of polymer gel that can sieve rare proteins from the blood could allow cancer to be diagnosed at an earlier stage.
Researchers looking for ways to make earlier diagnoses of cancer are concentrating on finding new “biomarkers” – molecules which indicate the presence of tumours before any symptoms show. Among the top candidates are small proteins that tumours shed into the blood. The trouble is that these are present in only minute quantities and so get masked by larger, more common blood proteins, such as albumin.
Researchers can strip the larger proteins from blood samples, but…
