Screening people at high risk of cancer is the ideal way to catch the disease at its early stages, but most methods are either too invasive, too costly, or both. A protein in the blood could make simple blood-based screening a reality, at least in lung cancer, one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. Ciz1 is a naturally occurring protein found in cells and is involved in growth and division. A variant form is linked with lung cancer and is stable in the blood. According to Dawn Coverley at the U.K.'s University of York, who led the research, this could lead to a blood test for very early forms of the disease. "By looking for variant Ciz1 in the blood, we can pick out people who have small tumors in their lungs, without the need to take a biopsy or undergo surgery," Coverley said in a press release. Cizzle Biotech, a spinoff company, is developing a test suitable for use in hospital diagnostic laboratories. Press release