Food Pathogen Detection via Handheld 'Nanoflower' Biosensor

At present, harmful pathogens in food are mostly only discovered when people get sick. Earlier detection - preferably before food reaches consumers - could prevent many cases of foodborne illness and save the cost and effort involved in food recalls. Now, a team working toward solving this problem has developed a portable biosensor based on "nanoflowers" that detects harmful bacteria.

The new technology is the work of researchers at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, who describe how they developed and tested it in a paper published in the journal Small.

Even tiny amounts of harmful bacteria and other microbes can give rise to serious health risks, but the available sensor technology is unable to detect them easily and quickly in small quantities.

The key challenge in solving this problem is finding a way to detect the faint chemical signals that the harmful microbes emit at the molecular level.

Read more:  Food Pathogen Detection via Handheld 'Nanoflower' Biosensor

The nanoflower biosensor detects tiny chemical signals emitted by bacteria and amplifies them so they
can be picked up easily with a simple handheld pH meter.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Scientists develop supersensitive biosensor for cancer

A team of physicists and engineers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, has created an optical biosensor for cancer detection using nanostructured metamaterials that are 1 million times more sensitive than previous versions, pointing the way toward an effective early detection system for cancer and other illnesses.

The device, which is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, has been developed to provide oncologists with a way to detect a single molecule of an enzyme produced by circulatingcancer cells.

Such detection could allow doctors to diagnose patients with certain cancers far earlier than possible today, monitor treatment and resistance, and more.

The research, published online in the journalNature Materials, describes how the nanosensor acts like a biological sieve, isolating a small protein molecule weighing less than 800 quadrillionths of a nanogram from an extremely dilute solution.

The researchers believe the sensing technology will also be useful in diagnosing and monitoring other diseases.

"The prognosis of many cancers depends on the stage of the cancer at diagnosis," says Giuseppe "Pino" Strangi, professor of physics at Case Western Reserve and leader of the research.

Read more: Scientists develop supersensitive biosensor for cancer

The researchers used nanostructured metamaterials 1 million times more sensitive
than previous versions, enabling an early detection system for cancer.

Source: medicalnewstoday