Google Creating 'Synthetic Skin' To Detect Cancer

Google's secret health research section has come up with "synthetic human skin." This is an innovative cancer detecting project that may also prevent the illness.

At Mountain View, California, the secretive Google X laboratories is trying to make a wristband to identify cancer cells, according to theatlantic.com. It also issues some signals to warn about heart attacks and other such illnesses that are transmitted through blood.

By visiting the hidden research center with more than a 100 doctor and scientist employees, The Atlantic probed into the issue. Andrew Conrad, head of Google Life Sciences, replied that even though the study is new, scientists hope to "change medicine from being episodic and reactive, like going to the doctor saying 'my arm hurts,' to being proactive and preventative," according to rt.com.

He explained that to identify the cancer cells, the technology hoped to employ "disease-detecting nanoparticles" that could be taken through a pill, and then send the information to a sensor on a wristband. The "light up" cells make their way below the detector which, like a magnet, attracts the nanoparticles.

"We have [the nanoparticles] circulate around your whole body looking for those cells and we collect them using a magnet and basically ask them what they saw," Conrad said.

Conrad pointed out that the nanoparticles with cancer cells will "light up," and to catch the light, scientists have to study its passing through the skin. Hence, Google began to create "practice arms" with synthetic skin and real human skin from donors.

Finding out even slight changes in a person's biochemistry could be like a warning system. By swallowing a tablet with nanoparticles that are customised to attach to markers for various conditions, such as "cancerous cells or chemical levels linked to disease," doctors would be able to detect changes in a person, according to the independent.

"When they were casting and making these arms they had to make them from materials that behave like skin, have the same autofluresence and biochemical components of real arms," Conrad said.

Continuously overseeing 175 healthy volunteers, Google's goal is to understand human health.

RT listed Google's other innovative projects such as: "a tremor-canceling spoon for Parkinson's patients, contact lenses with micro cameras, Project Loon - a balloon-powered internet, driverless cars, and delivery drones."