In Translation

Teaming up to fight cancer

Lawrence Livermore, UC Davis cancer collaboration offers best of both worlds

Stavros Demos is a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His project is a tool that uses lasers to detect cancer. It's based on the principle that malignant cells respond differently to light than healthy ones. If placed at the end of a fiber-optic probe, the tool could help doctors find bladder cancer without a biopsy. Problem is, Demos needs human tissue to fine-tune the process for use in cancer patients.

That's something Ralph deVere White, a urologist and director of the UC Davis Cancer, has plenty of. A cancer researcher, deVere White has treated prostate and bladder cancers for more than 20 years.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist - something they have lots of at Lawrence Livermore - to see they have shared interests.

Demos and deVere White now work together on this promising new device, and other collaborative efforts are forming quickly, thanks to an agreement between the UC Davis Cancer Center and Lawrence Livermore to develop an integrated cancer program.

The affiliation, spelled out last September in a memorandum of understanding, calls for shared laboratory space and joint leadership, including adjunct academic appointments for Lawrence Livermore researchers at UC Davis.