U OF ARKANSAS RESEARCH LOOKS TO CATCH TUMORS EARLIER

University of Arkansas researchers recently won a $145,000 award from the Department of Defense to study whether metabolic changes in tissue could give clues to where tumors might form, the university reports.

Narasimhan Rajaram, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, will lead the study. Kyle Quinn, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, will serve as co-investigator. Both are BMES members.
 
The research focuses on lung cancer. Rajaram will investigate the "field effect," a phenomenon that suggests studying seemingly-normal tissue around a tumor might reveal underlying genetic changes that indicate whether another tumor could form, according to the article.
 
"We're trying to determine if there are changes in the adjacent normal tissue," Rajaram said. "Are they pathologically normal but metabolically abnormal?"
 
Researchers will be using multiphoton microscopy, an advanced imaging technique used on living tissue, to examine three types of tissue: Normal tissue, tumor-adjacent tissue that appears normal, and tissue from a tumor. The goal is to understand how tumor-adjacent normal tissue might be different from truly normal tissue.

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