Oregon State University (OSU) researchers have looked into the extraordinary capability of carbon nanotubes to maximize the speed of biological sensors, an advanced technology that could one day be used to perform routine lab tests in minutes, thus speeding both diagnosis and treatment.
The new research findings have practically increased the prototype nano-biosensors’ speed and can identify applications in medicine, toxicology, new drug development, environmental monitoring and other fields. The research was reported in a professional journal, Lab on a Chip.
According to researchers, the key to the modern technology is the unusual power of carbon nanotubes. A development of nanotechnology deals with unusually smaller particles adjoining the molecular level and these nanotubes are hollow, long structures that contain unique optical, electronic and mechanical properties.
Here, carbon nanotubes can be utilized to identify a protein on a sensor surface. The nanotubes modify their electrical resistivity when a protein settles on them, and the length of this change can be evaluated to ascertain the existence of a particular protein such as ductal and serum protein biomarkers.
The newest approach was to find a way to keep proteins away from binding to other surfaces and by creating a way to grease the pipe, the researchers from OSU were able to increase the sensing method by 2.5 times. The OSU scientists said that additional work is required to enhance the particular binding of proteins.
The researchers reported in their study that electronic disclosure of blood-borne biomarker proteins provides the probability of point-of-care medical diagnostics and these electronic biosensor devices will quantify multifold biomarkers in a few minutes.