Ohio State professor starts the long journey of training ants to detect cancer

Rachelle Adams holds a tub containing an ant colony. Ants move inside the nest, covered with a red sheet of plastic to keep it dark. Credit: Echo Visintine | Lantern Reporter Rachelle Adams’ enthusiasm for ants shows before she ever starts talking about them, as her office is covered in ant art, figurines and posters. Adams, an associate professor in evolution, ecology and organismal biology, has studied ants her whole life, but now she’s made a slight pivot: using ants for cancer detection. “I never ever thought that I would be doing this,” Adams said. “But it just aligned so beautifully.” Two years ago, a colleague showed Adams an academic paper where scientists taught ants to detect cancer by associating the chemical compounds of cancer with sugar. “It really spoke to me because, obviously, cancer is a really significant threat to humans,” Adams said.

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