Researchers are using toenail clippings for a study related to lung cancer

Dr. Gregory Guilcher and Dr. Sarah McQuillan
Dr. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, is leading an interdisciplinary team at the University of Calgary looking at environmental causes of lung cancer, like radon. The naturally occurring, odorless, colourless but radioactive gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoking.
Despite that, rules governing lung cancer screening programs can’t yet include radon exposure as one of the risk criteria. The reason being few people can reliably report their radon exposure across decades like they can report the number of years they’ve smoked tobacco.
Goodarzi may have a solution. He’s currently recruiting for a study that may provide critical data to estimate a person’s lung-cancer risk on the added basis of long-term radon exposure. To do this he needs Canadians’ toenail clippings.