A protein can tell us a suspicious spot. Is this benign along or cancer of a tumor? In the case of lung spots 4 and 5 turn behind us. Unfortunately, making that determination takes a long need and biopsy which means puncture wound and ingest and rescue affection.

Lee in colleagues at Seattle institute for systems biology have divided the pain of blood test that could limited the need for most biopsies.

They identified 371 proteins that *** along the tumors or leak out of them. Then they looked at blood samples taken from people who had a long biopsies. A pattern emerged, 13 proteins were significantly higher or lower in patients who had lung cancer than those had lung tumor of benign.

The researcher tried the blood tests on different patients and found when they given a clear results it was correct 90 percent of time. The work appears on the journal: Science translational medicine.

Indeed, a diagnosis of makers commercializing of the test, who says the same approach works on almost every diseases which could make the diagnosis much less prickly.

Thanks for the minutes. For Scientific Americans 60-second science. I am Wayt Gibbs.