New Camera Gives Surgeons a Butterfly's-Eye View of Cancer

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis have developed a surgical camera inspired by the eye of the morpho butterfly. The camera, connected to the goggles worn by a surgeon, sees infrared signals given off by tumor-binding dyes so that the surgeon can remove all of the cancerous tissue. The camera was tested in mice and in human patients with breast cancer.