Here's this week's Biomed Bites, a feature appearing each Thursday that introduces readers to Stanford's most innovative biomedical researchers.
Star Trek fans rejoice! Stanford radiologist Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD, hopes that someday he'll be able to scan patients using a handheld device -- similar to the one used by Bones in the popular sci-fi series -- to check their health.
"Our long-term goals are to be able to figure out what's going on in each and every one of you cells anywhere in your body by essentially scanning you," Gambhir said in the video above. "We've been working on this area for well over three decades."
This is useful because it will help doctors diagnose diseases such as cancer months or even years before the symptoms become apparent, Gambhir said.
And these advances aren't light-years away. "Many of the things we're doing have already started to move into the hospital setting and are being tested in patients. Many others will come in the years to follow," he said.
Gambhir is chair of the Department of Radiology. He also directs the Molecular Imaging Program and the Canary Center for Cancer Early Detection.
Learn more about Stanford Medicine's Biomedical Innovation Initiative and about other faculty leaders who are driving biomedical innovation here.
Previously: Stanford partnering with Google [x] and Duke to better understand the human body, Nano-hitchhikers ride stem cells into heart, let researchers watch in real time and weeks later and Developing a new molecular imaging system and technique for early disease detection
