Centre could bring about new age of 'precision medicine'

According to the university, technologies that analyse the chemical make-up of a tissue or body fluid sample have been used extensively in research, but their ability to provide information about someone’s physical condition or disease state is only just beginning to be exploited in medicine.

In a paper published in Nature, researchers at the new centre describe how such biochemical data could inform each stage of a patient’s treatment and also enhance clinical trials of new therapies.

The Imperial Clinical Phenome Centre, based at St Mary’s Hospital, brings together technologies for rapid molecular analysis to the hospital setting, aiming to put them at the centre of clinical decision making.

The centre includes technologies based on mass spectrometry deployed in the operating theatre to give surgeons diagnostic information in real time.

One of the tools, being developed by Dr Zoltan Takats, is the so-called ‘intelligent knife’, which analyses the smoke produced when the electrically heated surgical blade cuts into tissue during an operating procedure.