This Light-Stretching Microscope Hunts for Cancer at 36M Frames Per Second

Cancer is responsible for one-in-three deaths in Canada, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. To patients who are diagnosed, early detection can mean the difference between life and death. A microscope using AI is being touted as a powerful new instrument in the diagnostic toolkit--one that manages to snap an astounding 36 million images per second to catch cancer cells and identify their characteristics. The microscope was designed by a team at UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute, who say it's a way to identify cancer cells in patients' blood samples faster and more accurately than current methods. In a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, they describe how, using a patented microscope outfitted with a camera, they're able to photograph cells without destroying them.