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Google Developing a Pill To Detect Cancer

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-nano-ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-nano-pound-of-cure dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Google X research lab has unveiled a new project: developing a pill capable of detecting cancer, imminent heart attacks, and other diseases. According to the article, "the company is fashioning nanoparticles—particles about one billionth of a meter in width—that combine a magnetic material with antibodies or proteins that can attach to and detect other molecules inside the body." When a person ingests the pill, these particles interact with the particular markers for a given disease. Since they're magnetic, they can then be guided back to a particular spot where they can be scanned to determine if any interactions took place. Google X's head of life sciences, Andrew Conrad, said, "What we are trying to do is change medicine from reactive and transactional to proactive and preventative. Nanoparticles... give you the ability to explore the body at a molecular and cellular level."

2 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Hype or real? by Chipmunk100 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How do these particles avoid gut enzymes, once in the blood how do these particles avoid phagocytosis by macrophages, how can you expect that magnetic dragging of a number of these particles will not be deleterious, for example some of these got into cellular organelles being forcefully pulled out through their membranes etc. Either it is crazy or there is something ingenious about it.

  2. So Many Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, once the antibody attaches to something, how do you get it to detach so that it can go to the rendezvous point?
    So you inject a thousand different particles, how do you "read" which ones interacted with something?
    Hmm, you also have to have a marker for each disease - a marker that is extraordinarily specific. These don't exist either.

    While I hope it works, I suspect that this project this project will go nowhere. BTW - antibodies are about 14 nm long, 9 nm wide, probably about 4 nm in smallest dimension (possibly much larger, depending on the type of antibody) which is significantly larger than the story implies. I'll believe it when I see it.

    Sounds to me like someone has done some creative writing to get their project funded.