New Breast Cancer Screening Technology from Fermiscan

By Morgen E. Peck

Fermiscan Holdings, a start-up firm in Sydney, Australia, says it plans to commercialize a ­controversial breast-cancer-screening ­technology that most scientists have given up on. The technology would replace traditional X‑ray mammography with a test requiring just a hair sample—and access to a multimillion-dollar particle accelerator called a synchrotron. Fermiscan is betting that women will greatly prefer offering a hair sample to suffering the discomfort of mammography. Having analyzed 800 hair samples collected from women as they go in for routine breast exams, Fermiscan says it will be ready to start offering screenings by the end of 2008. The trouble is, eight years after the technique was first reported, no independent laboratory has ever been able to make it work.

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