Lung cancer is one of the deadliest cancers in the U.S. in
part because it is often diagnosed too late to be treatable. Nanocytomics
LLC thinks its high-resolution imaging technology can cheaply and
non-invasively identify patients at high risk of developing lung and other
cancers. The company hopes its tests will become standard of care in
asymptomatic subjects, akin to Pap smears for cervical cancer.
The company uses partial wave spectroscopy (PWS) microscopy,
an optical technique developed by co-founder and CEO Vadim Backman at Northwestern
University, where he is a professor in the department of biomedical
engineering.