UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN METABOLOMICS CANCER INTERNSHIP

January 2016 - March 2016

Even when the chance is low, in order to diagnose someone for cancer, the patient needs to undergo a biopsy.  Biopsies are highly invasive, painful, and expensive procedures making them unfavorable for being the first method for determining the presence or absence of cancer.  In our project, we analyzed metabolite concentrations found in prostate cancer patients’ urine, blood, stool, and tissue samples using mass spectrometry to find the correlation between the molecular concentration and the degree of cancer. The goal is to find a way to determine the presence or absence of cancer using easily obtained biological samples (i.e. urine, blood, stool, etc.) instead of having each patient undergo a biopsy.