Small medical equipment can give a diagnosis using as few as 50 cells, avoiding the need to cut out tissue, according to German scientists participating at the Institute of Physics" conference Physics 2005 in Warwick, UK on Tuesday.

The technique works by using a special laser beam of unfocused light to stretch and measure individual cells one by one without killing them.

Inventors from the University of Leipzig said it was 1,000 times more accurate than traditional tests. They said the same technology could also be used to find stem cells in blood.

Professor Josef Käs and Dr Jochen Guck from the University of Leipzig have developed the procedure that can extract and isolate embryo-quality stem cells from adult blood for the first time. This new method could unlock the stem cell . and stimulate a boom in medical research using stem cells.

By: Prensa-Latina