ADVERTISEMENT
  • The Membership Club
  • #EndSARS Dashboard
  • PT Hausa
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Premium Times Nigeria
  • Home
  • Gender
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • COVID-19
    • News Reports
    • Special Reports and Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features and Interviews
    • Multimedia
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Special Reports/Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Features and Interviews
    • Multimedia
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • #EndSARS Dashboard
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
  • #PandoraPapers
  • AUN-PT Data Hub
  • Home
  • Gender
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • COVID-19
    • News Reports
    • Special Reports and Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features and Interviews
    • Multimedia
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Special Reports/Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Features and Interviews
    • Multimedia
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • #EndSARS Dashboard
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
  • #PandoraPapers
  • AUN-PT Data Hub
Premium Times Nigeria
BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad
ADVERTISEMENT

Nigerian-born scientist wins award for his cancer-seeing glasses

byBen Ezeamalu
June 22, 2015
2 min read

A Nigerian born scientist, Samuel Achilefu, has won the prestigious St. Louis Award for 2014 for creating cancer-visualizing glasses.

Dr. Achilefu, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering, and his team developed the imaging technology in cancer diagnosis into a wearable night vision-like goggles so surgeons could see the cancer cells while operating.

“They basically have to operate in the dark,” Bloomberg Businessweek quoted Dr. Achilefu, 52, as saying.

“I thought, what if we create something that let’s you see things that aren’t available to the ordinary human eye.”

Dr. Achilefu won a scholarship from the French government to study at the University of Nancy, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a regional newspaper in St. Louis, U.S., and is the 87th person to receive the annual award since it was established in 1931.

Married with two young children, Dr. Achilefu moved to St. Louis after he was hired by Mallinckrodt to start a new research department.

“Our efforts start with two words: ‘What if?'” Dr. Achilefu said during his acceptance speech.

“These words may sound simple, but they embody the belief that each person has the potential to make a difference, if only he or she can take the time to understand the problem.”

According to Bloomberg, the researchers’ technology requires two steps: First, surgeons inject a tiny quantity of an infrared fluorescent marker into the patient’s bloodstream. The peptides contained in the marker enables it to locate cancer cells and buries itself inside.

After the tracer flows through a patient’s body and clears from non-cancerous tissue – which lasts about four hours – the operation would begin. Wearing the goggle, the doctor can inspect tumours under an infra red light that reacts with the dye, causing cancer cells to glow from within.

This month, the goggles have been used on humans for the first time by surgeons at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Four patients suffering from breast cancer and over two dozen patients with melanoma or liver cancer have been operated on using the goggles since they were developed.

“The goggles function fantastically,” says Ryan Fields, a surgical oncologist who is collaborating with Dr. Achilefu to improve on the technology.

“They allow us to see the cells in real time, which is critical. Because the marker has not yet been FDA-approved, doctors are currently using a different, somewhat inferior marker that also reacts with infrared light.”

Julie Margenthaler, a breast cancer surgeon, says tens of thousands of women who had had breast cancer lumpectomies go back for second operations every year because of the inability to see the microscopic extent of the tumours.

“Imagine what it would mean if these glasses eliminated the need for follow-up surgery and the associated pain, inconvenience and anxiety.”

Dr. Achilefu and his team began work in 2012 after they received $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Before then, they had been working on a lean budget provided by the Department of Defence’s Breast Cancer Research Program.

After it was developed, the team spent years testing the technology on mice, rats, and rabbits to confirm the efficacy of the goggles.

“Nobody would believe us until we showed that the goggles work,” Dr. Achilefu says.

The Food and Drug Administration are still reviewing the goggles and a related dye Dr. Achilefu and his co-researchers developed, according to Washington University in St. Louis, a St. Louis based journal.

Dr. Achilefu says he intends to keep Washington University as the primary centre for clinical trials to evaluate the technology in patients.

“Making a difference in society should be the goal of everybody,” Dr. Achilefu

  • WhatsApp
  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Telegram
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

WATCH: Governor Yahaya Bello's Roadmap to Hope 2023

CITIZEN-FM AD


Support PREMIUM TIMES' journalism of integrity and credibility

Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.

For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.

By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all.

Donate


TEXT AD: Why women cheat: what every Nigerian man should know







PT Mag Campaign AD

Previous Post

DIGITAL TV TALK: How Pay-TV Content Is Bought

Next Post

AUN to host healthcare evaluation seminar

Ben Ezeamalu

Ben Ezeamalu

Ben Ezeamalu is an Assistant Managing Editor and the Head of Lagos Operations/Metro Editor at PREMIUM TIMES. A graduate of Microbiology from the University of Jos, Ben won the 2015 Africa Fact-Check Awards and was a runner-up in the 2014 CNN/Multichoice African Journalists of the Year. Twitter: @callmebenfigo.

More News

Bukola Saraki [Photo: @bukola.saraki]

INTERVIEW: What I will do as president on state police, crypto, repentant terrorists – Saraki

May 25, 2022
APC and PDP

ANALYSIS: Lagos 2023: APC, PDP set for guber primaries but age-old issues remain

May 25, 2022
Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal (Photo Credit: BBC)

ANALYSIS: Tambuwal’s silence puts Sokoto PDP governorship aspirants on edge

May 24, 2022
The Yar'adu'a's family house in Katsina.

ANALYSIS: Why presidential aspirants make ‘pilgrimage’ to Yar’Adua’s family house

May 23, 2022
A collage of 2023 presidential aspirants - Musa Kwankwaso. Kingsley Moghalu. Kola Abiola. Omoyele Sowore. Garba Adamu

ANALYSIS: No more also-rans: Parties seeking to rattle APC, PDP in 2023 General Election

May 22, 2022
A collage of 2023 presidential aspirants - Lawan, Tinubu, Wike, Atiku, Osinbajo and Moghalu

UPDATED: PT State of the Race: ‘Reluctant’ Lawan, double-dealings as contests for APC, PDP tickets heighten

May 22, 2022
Next Post
The American University of Nigeria to Host 4th Annual Homecoming

AUN to host healthcare evaluation seminar

How I will operate as Nigeria’s First Lady – Buhari’s Wife

Buhari's wife, Aisha, urges Nigerians to embrace Yoga

Leave Comment

Search

AUN-PT Ad





Transport-Technology


Stanbic Ad


Access Bank Ad





Glo Ad


Subscribe to News via Email

Enter your email address and receive notifications of news by email.

Join 1,846,547 other subscribers.

Advertisement






netherland biz school Advert



Zenith Advert

ADVERTISEMENT

Our Digital Network

  • PT Hausa
  • Election Centre
  • Human Trafficking Investigation
  • Centre for Investigative Journalism
  • National Conference
  • Press Attack Tracker
  • PT Academy
  • Dubawa
  • LeaksNG
  • Campus Reporter

Resources

  • Oil & Gas Facts
  • List of Universities in Nigeria
  • LIST: Federal Unity Colleges in Nigeria
  • NYSC Orientation Camps in Nigeria
  • Nigeria’s Federal/States’ Budgets since 2005
  • Malabu Scandal Thread
  • World Cup 2018
  • Panama Papers Game
  • Our Digital Network
  • About Us
  • Resources
  • Projects
  • Data & Infographics
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

No Result
View All Result
  • #PandoraPapers
  • Gender
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Health
    • COVID-19
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Investigations
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Multimedia
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • #EndSARS Dashboard
  • Projects
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • Parliament Watch
    • AGAHRIN
  • AUN-PT Data Hub
  • Opinion
  • The Membership Club
  • Dubawa
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

Our website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.