They call it tumor painting, a futuristic idea that might not be far from reality. The concept is to mark or paint the areas where cancer exists so surgeons can cut away only the tumor. This innovative approach was discovered at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Dr. James Olson's lab.

"I think it is a breakthrough technology. If it works anywhere as well in humans as it does in animals, it's going to be phenomenal. It will change the way that we take out all kinds of cancers," said Dr. Olson.

This extraordinary breakthrough came out of clinical practice at Children's Hospital. The original idea focused on how to perform most effective surgeries on pediatric brain tumors. Dr. Olson explains.

"What we found it that all too often kids come back after their surgery and even though the surgeons have done their best to take out their brain tumor, a portion of the tumor is left behind and that's because the surgeons couldn't distinguish the tumor from the normal brain. They didn't want to keep going because they were afraid that they would cause the child to be paralyzed or have other neurologic abnormalities," he said.

This creates yet another problem. By not cutting all of the tumor out, billions of cancer cells are potentially left behind, which could lead to more surgery, another resection, or perhaps a fatality.

So Dr. Rich Ellenbogen, who is the chairman of neurosurgery at Children's Hospital and the UW, challenged our lab to come with a way to make cancer cells light up so that the surgeons could actually see them and distinguish them from the normal tissue around them.

Now this is where Dr. Olson and his team's project gets a little tricky. Olson's lab went to work on finding a molecule that would cling only to the cancer and nothing else. It turns out their answer existed thousands of miles away. It was crawling across the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.

"We settled on a compound called chloratoxin, which is a peptide which is a small protein that comes from a scorpion toxin," he said.

Dr. Olson said the Isreali Death Stalker scorpion normally preys on things like crayfish and insects and fortunately its toxin is damaging to humans.

"But this chlorotoxin that comes from this scorpion binds to brain cancer cells without binding to the normal brain cells. So we reasoned that if we could link a little light molecule to this peptide, that the peptide would drag the little light molecule into the cancer cells and cause them to light up so that the surgeons could see where the cancer cells are and separate them from the normal brain," he said.

The results in the lab have been nothing short of amazing.

"The sensitivity of this is astonishing. When we found out that it worked so well in gliomas and other brain tumors, we tested it in prostate cancer, colon cancer, sarcomas, breast cancers a whole number of other types of cancers and it worked in all of them," said Dr. Olson.

So the venom of the Isreali desert scorpion, also known as the death stalker, might eventually lead to extending the life of cancer patients. And Dr. Olson says we need not worry that they'll run out of scorpion venom, they've found a way to synthesize it. And although this sounds like science fiction, it's shown this could be science fact, and dr. Olson is very excited.

"For me personally this is the most exciting project that our lab has brought forward. We've done a lot of exciting things, but this is by far the most exciting," he said.

The concept of tumor paint goes far beyond surgery. Dr. Olson says there could be many applications using this for early detection of cancer.  Imagine taking a pill or getting an injection of tumor paint and a couple days later having a scan that could show if a cancer exists. Anything that doctors can get to with a camera or endoscope - cervical cancer, colon cancer, esophageal cancer - could all potentially be diagnosed much earlier with a tumor paint screening.