A University of Hawaii at Manoa scientist has been awarded a $2.8 million grant to continue working on improving the early detection of breast cancer.

Youping Deng, director of John A. Burns School of Medicine’s Bioinformatics core, said he has been able to detect early stage cancer from benign lesions with over 90% accuracy, based on preliminary studies involving fat-soluble molecules in the blood that can detect it.

“Mammography is the current gold standard for breast cancer screening. However, most women with abnormal mammograms are eventually found not to have breast cancer,” Deng said. “Most abnormal mammograms are false positives that require expensive breast imaging and biopsies, which can cause psychological distress.”

Deng is hoping to use the National Institutes of Health grant to identify the signatures of certain molecules that can be used as a companion diagnostic tool to screening mammography, which would reduce follow-ups investigations like invasive biopsies.

Deng’s team uses artificial intelligence and computation equations in their research, and they hope to develop a new, diagnostic tool that can be applied to other forms of cancer and provide earlier and more accurate diagnoses.