Cells Communicate with Light ⚡ экспресс

Living cells continuously exchange light signals — a billion times fainter than daylight. It's like a whisper picked up by ultra-sensitive instruments. A healthy cell whispers rhythmically, a cancerous one — haltingly, but with a long memory of previous flashes.

Comparing neuron helper cells and aggressive glioblastoma cells, scientists recorded this light using detectors sensitive to individual light particles (spectrometers and photometers), and applied entropy analysis — a measure of disorder. It turned out that the glow of cancer cells is more chaotic, but with a long memory of past flashes: their whisper often breaks into muttering, yet remembers what was said before. This allowed not only distinguishing a sick cell from a healthy one, but also predicting how fast the tumor will develop.

This 'light signature' opens the way for scalpel-free diagnostics: from a drop of blood, a doctor will be able to hear what cells are chattering about and detect disease at an early stage.