News Finding: Gambhir's team appears to have found a way to force any of numerous tumor types to produce a biomarker whose presence in the blood of mice unambiguously signifies cancer, because none of the rodents' tissues -- cancerous or otherwise -- would normally be making it.
Paper Finding: An important point for clinical translation is that the blood reporter produced by our MCs will be diluted by the much larger (∼3,500-fold) blood volume in humans (5 L) as compared with mice (2 mL).
News Context: Or a tumor -- especially a small one -- simply may not secrete enough of the trademark substance to be detectable. Gambhir's team appears to have found a way to force any of numerous tumor types to produce a biomarker whose presence in the blood of mice unambiguously signifies cancer, because none of the rodents' tissues -- cancerous or otherwise -- would normally be making it. The particular promoter Gambhir and his colleagues snapped into the minicircle ahead of the SEAP gene normally regulates a gene called survivin that, in adults, is only "on" in cancer cells.
Paper Context: S7) ], but, with future improvements in both the vector itself and the delivery of the vector to tumors, it should be possible to detect smaller and smaller tumors over time. An important point for clinical translation is that the blood reporter produced by our MCs will be diluted by the much larger (∼3,500-fold) blood volume in humans (5 L) as compared with mice (2 mL). Once future studies define the minimal detectable tumor volume in mice, it will be important to consider that the minimal detectable volume in humans will be relatively larger because of the differences in total blood volume.