Researchers prompt melanoma to make sounds

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have developed a new, minimally invasive technique to make melanoma cells make noise. The experimental tests demonstrate that the method may make it easier to detect cancer as it metastasizes. The team's method, called photoacoustic detection, combines laser techniques from optics and ultrasound techniques from acoustics, using a laser to make cells vibrate and then picking up the characteristic sound of melanoma cells. It may give physicians a new and much more precise technique to routinely test high-risk patients for early signs of melanoma.

- see their release on the work