Have you seen today's Google Doodle?
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| May 13th Google Doodle - Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolauo! Photo Credit: Google |
Today, Google is honouring the birthday of one of Cytology's greatest pioneers - Dr Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolauo, by their doodles. It is the 136th aniversary of Georgios Papanikolauo's birthday. This cytologist is best known for his work on the life-saving technique, the Papanikolauo test, which is commonly known by scientists and others alike by other terms such as Pap Stain or Pap smear. The Pap smear is the earliest cancer detection which was designed to detect Cervical Cancer as well as uterine cancer - and can I just say as a female, I am very appreciative for his hard work in this field.
... But first ...
What is Cytology?
Cytology is the branch of biology/medical science which focuses on the structure and functions of cells in either a plant or an animal (That includes us humans). As a biomedical science graduate, I have studied this branch of science for three years and normally cytology is paired with another branch of science - Pathology.
Pathology is the branch of medical science that focuses on finding the cause or/and effects of diseases. The two branches of science are normally very well intertwined with each other so don't be surprised if the word cytopathology pops up in the blog post. Cytopathology just means the study of disease at a cellular level.
Pathology is the branch of medical science that focuses on finding the cause or/and effects of diseases. The two branches of science are normally very well intertwined with each other so don't be surprised if the word cytopathology pops up in the blog post. Cytopathology just means the study of disease at a cellular level.
... Back to Papanikolauo ...
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This is Dr Georgio Papanikolauo
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
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It was Papanikolauo's father, a doctor as profession, who influenced the young scientist's decision to pursue a career with medicine. This led him to graduate with medical school with top honours. Afterwards, he worked in the miltary as an assistant surgeon. Then after caring for lepacy patients for two years, the cytologist (to be) travelled to the University of Munich (Germany) to study a PhD in Zoology.
During the time of the First World War, 1913, Papanikolauo along with his wife decided to emigrate to the United States. This was a very hard decision for the pair at the time due to the fact that none of them could speak English and (more worryingly) the pair only had enough money to make the journey. The doctor had to get any sort of employment to live. He worked as a rug saleman at one point. Until an year later when he got a position at both the University of New York - the pathology department, and the University of Cornell Medical College.
This is where Papanikolauo's research started, in the year 1916. He had been studying sex chromosomes. While doing this, Papanikolauo hypothesised that reproductive cycles of experimental animals could be timed by examining the cells of the female's reproductive tract. So, Papanikolauo took vaginal smears.
From the 1920s, the cytologist began working on the cytopathology of human's and their reproductive systems. He began noticing differences between normal and maligant (cancerous) cells upon a simple look of those cells underneath the microscope. Papanikolauo's findings was published in 1928 but went largely unnoticed.
Although, I don't think Dr Papanikolauo was that bothered. The year of 1928 was a very good year for this cytologist. He became a US citzen and promoted to Assistant Professior at Cornell. Though as part of his research, Papanikolauo collabrated with another scientist - Dr Herbert Traut which lead to publishising their landmark book - Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear. The book described the functional change of the menstrual cycles as well as the hormones.
More importantly for Dr Papanikolauo, the book featured the normal and abnormal smears which has been taken for the cervix and vagina that was simply look at down the microscope. This simple proceedure quickly became the gold standard for screening Cervical cancer. It costs very little and is so easy to preform - It is so easy that a Pap stain test was a first year lesson at the biomedical science course I was studying.
Dr Papanikolauo was nominated for the Nobel Prize, twice! Then he recieved the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1950.
Get your Smear Test Done!
In England, we have a free smear test which is avaliable to females from the age of 25 to 64. Then every 3 years, the NHS invites the female for another check up. But, the number of people not taking the smear test in rising. I've been seeing this trend for a while now, with TV companies and the NHS trying to encourage people to go to their smear test. And though I can understand that females find the smear test quite embarrassing to experience. I'd still argue I'd much rather have that minor proceedure then develop Cervical cancer.
I'd actually go to mine when I eventually get to the age of 25.
This is a 'This Morning' talk about the smear test and why you should go to the test.
Although, the smear test isn't looking for cancer. The whole test itself is just to 'check up' on the overall health of that area of the women's anatomy. The Pap test can indicate whether there is anything slightly wrong which could be put right. (Link to video of the proceedure)
So today, I wanted to highlight the Cytologist who invented the pap smear test. But, if I haven't managed to get your interests - I hope I could presuade a few more people to get their smear test done đŸ˜€.
From the 1920s, the cytologist began working on the cytopathology of human's and their reproductive systems. He began noticing differences between normal and maligant (cancerous) cells upon a simple look of those cells underneath the microscope. Papanikolauo's findings was published in 1928 but went largely unnoticed.
Although, I don't think Dr Papanikolauo was that bothered. The year of 1928 was a very good year for this cytologist. He became a US citzen and promoted to Assistant Professior at Cornell. Though as part of his research, Papanikolauo collabrated with another scientist - Dr Herbert Traut which lead to publishising their landmark book - Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear. The book described the functional change of the menstrual cycles as well as the hormones.
More importantly for Dr Papanikolauo, the book featured the normal and abnormal smears which has been taken for the cervix and vagina that was simply look at down the microscope. This simple proceedure quickly became the gold standard for screening Cervical cancer. It costs very little and is so easy to preform - It is so easy that a Pap stain test was a first year lesson at the biomedical science course I was studying.
Dr Papanikolauo was nominated for the Nobel Prize, twice! Then he recieved the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1950.
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This is a Papanikolaou Stain of a random sample.
As you can see, these cells have been dyed either pink and blue. This has been by the many stains which are put on a sample like this. For example, one of the stains - haematoxlin, is used to colour the nucleus (the dot inside the cells).
Don't worry! These cells are meant to be different colours. Pink cells normally mean that one is a superficial cell (the largest cell). The blue cells are parabasal cells.
What isn't meant to happen (which you can see in this image), is the clumping of cells. That is unnormal. In fact, it's a low grade lesion.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
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Get your Smear Test Done!
In England, we have a free smear test which is avaliable to females from the age of 25 to 64. Then every 3 years, the NHS invites the female for another check up. But, the number of people not taking the smear test in rising. I've been seeing this trend for a while now, with TV companies and the NHS trying to encourage people to go to their smear test. And though I can understand that females find the smear test quite embarrassing to experience. I'd still argue I'd much rather have that minor proceedure then develop Cervical cancer.
I'd actually go to mine when I eventually get to the age of 25.
Although, the smear test isn't looking for cancer. The whole test itself is just to 'check up' on the overall health of that area of the women's anatomy. The Pap test can indicate whether there is anything slightly wrong which could be put right. (Link to video of the proceedure)
...
So today, I wanted to highlight the Cytologist who invented the pap smear test. But, if I haven't managed to get your interests - I hope I could presuade a few more people to get their smear test done đŸ˜€.
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