Cancer scientists are turning to astronomy to identify the faint hallmarks of aggressive tumours.

Techniques developed to find distant galaxies have been adapted to look for indistinct biomarkers.

The research could lead to computers replacing the age-old practice of peering down a microscope to search for signs of deadly cancer.

Aggressive tumours are traditionally spotted by staining cells to show up specific proteins. The new approach employs an automated system originally developed to pick out far away objects in the night sky.

In tests, the technique was employed to measure levels of three proteins among tumour samples from more than 2,000 breast cancer patients. Researchers compared the accuracy of assessing the results manually or by computer. They found that the automated system was at least as accurate as the manual one but many times faster.

Lead scientist Dr Raza Ali, from Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Institute, said: "We've exploited the natural overlap between the techniques astronomers use to analyse deep sky images from the largest telescopes and the need to pinpoint subtle differences in the staining of tumour samples down the microscope.

"The results have been even better than we'd hoped, with our new automated approach performing with accuracy comparable to the time-consuming task of scoring images manually, after only relatively minor adjustments to the formula. We're now planning a larger international study involving samples from more than 20,000 breast cancer patients to further refine our strategy."

The research, conducted with the help of Cambridge University astronomers, was reported in the British Journal of Cancer.

Dr Nicholas Walton, from Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy, said: "It's great that our image analysis software, which was originally developed to help track down planets harbouring life outside of our Solar System, is now also being used to help improve the outlook for cancer patients much closer to home."

Dr Julie Sharp, science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "This unlikely collaboration between astronomers and cancer researchers is a prime example of how, by working together, scientists from different disciplines can bring about innovative new solutions for beating cancer."

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Astronomy to help identify tumours