MANDELBROT would have approved. As the founder of fractal geometry, he scoured nature for fractal patterns 鈥� and now they鈥檝e been found on the surface of cervical cancer cells.
team at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to look for differences between healthy and cancerous cervical cells. The technique probes cells with tiny 鈥渇ingers鈥� to test their surface properties, such as strength and roughness.
The group found that the surface of each cell was made up of regions of varying stickiness. After analysing four points on over 300 cells, they discovered that the patterns of stickiness on the cells had fractal properties 鈥� they repeated themselves when the microscope zoomed out. 鈥淲e see a similarity in the patterns at 2 micrometres and 200 nanometres,鈥� says Sokolov. Healthy cells were not fractal (Physical Review Letters, in press).
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Sokolov thinks the findings could be used to improve diagnosis. Currently, screening for cervical cancer involves manually identifying suspicious-looking cells. 鈥淭he accuracy is barely over 50 per cent,鈥� says Sokolov. The AFM method was able to identify cancerous cells in cervical swabs from 12 women with 100 per cent accuracy, he says.
, a cancer researcher at the University of Cambridge, agrees that the results are encouraging, but stresses that the team must replicate their findings in precancerous cells 鈥� the ones that are usually picked up in screening tests.