CECs Researchers from the Theoretical Physics Laboratory Develop Research Lines Highly Specialized in the Field of the Particle Physics.

Particle physics studies the most elementary components of the matter, and to better understand them, resorts to the large-scale experiments. Currently this experimental data source comes from colliders, such as Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which has for its main task to "make hadrons collide" and to examine what happens after that phenomenon.

The analytical complexity of the data from these collisions is huge. It´s like to smash head-on two trucks charged of crystal ware and analyze pieces of glass to try to understand how a glass of champagne is made – at night, when it rains and without flashlight. This is precisely the research field in which CECs theoretical physicists work.

Valdivia, Chile, and Washington, D.C.—Cancer cells break down sugars and produce the metabolic acid lactate at a much higher rate than normal cells. This phenomenon provides a telltale sign that cancer is present, via diagnostics such as PET scans, and possibly offers an avenue for novel cancer therapies. Now a team of Chilean researchers at The Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECs), with the collaboration of Carnegie’s Wolf Frommer, has devised a molecular sensor that can detect levels of lactate in individual cells in real time.

Prior to this advance, no other measurement method could non-invasively detect lactate in real time at the single-cell level. The work, published in the open access journal PLoS ONE, is a boon to understanding how different types of cells go awry when cancer hits.

“Over the last decade, the Frommer lab at Carnegie has pioneered the use of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer, or FRET, sensors to measure the concentration and flow of sugars in individual cells with a simple fluorescent color change.