Cancer drops sparse chemical hints of its presence early on, but unfortunately, many of them are in a class of biochemicals that could not be detected thoroughly, until now.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have engineered a chemical trap that exhaustively catches what are called glycoproteins, including minuscule traces that have previously escaped detection.
Glycoproteins are protein molecules bonded with sugar molecules, and they're very common in all living things. Glycoproteins come in myriad varieties and sizes and make up important cell structures like cell receptors. They also wander around our bodies in secretions like mucus or hormones.
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But some glycoproteins are very, very rare and can serve as an early signal, or biomarker, indicating there's something wrong in the body - like cancer. Existing methods to reel in glycoproteins for laboratory examination are relatively new and have had big holes in their nets, so many of these molecules, especially those very rare ones produced by cancer, have tended to slip by.
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Sorry, faint cancer cues made of glycoproteins, but you'll have a very hard time dodging the chemical octopus. The parts shaped like a hexagon-pentagon combo are benzoboroxoles, which make great glycoprotein grabbers, and they're stitched together to form highly flexible arms with a long reach. In the middle is a magnetic bead that researchers use as a handle to extract the octopus along with the glycoproteins it nabs.
CREDIT Georgia Tech / Wu / Xiao & NYPL Digital Commons / Brumfield

Parenting concerns contributed significantly to the psychological distress of mothers with late-stage cancer, according to a study by University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers.

Cancer is the leading cause of disease-specific death for parenting-age women in the United States, and women with incurable cancer who have children can have increased rates of depression and anxiety. To better understand how parenting concerns might relate to the quality of life for this group, UNC Lineberger researchers surveyed 224 mothers with advanced cancer. They found that parenting concerns were significantly associated with lower quality of life - almost as much as declines in day-to-day physical functioning. The findings, published in the journal Cancer, point to a need for greater support for mothers with metastatic cancer, researchers say.
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"As part of cancer care, we ask about patients' functional status, and how they are responding to treatment, but we are not systematically asking how cancer impacts our patients as parents, yet we know being a parent is incredibly important to their identity and well-being," said UNC Lineberger's Eliza M. Park, MD, assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Department of Medicine. "Among women with metastatic cancer, their health-related quality of life is powerfully interlinked with their parenting concerns about the impact of their illness on their minor children. It appears to equally contribute to someone's assessment of their quality of life as some of the clinical variables we routinely ask about."