ARTICLES
Stimulus Material for depth studies, courtesy of Macquarie University (continued)
New nanoparticles help detect deep-tissue cancers
Researchers have developed a new form of nanoparticle and associated imaging technique that can detect
multiple disease biomarkers, including those for breast cancer, found in deep-tissue in the body.
Reported in Nature Nanotechnology, the research opens up a new avenue in minimally invasive disease
diagnosis and will potentially have widespread use both for biomedical research and for clinical applications.
“Specially designed nanoparticles can be placed in biological samples or injected into specific sites of the body
and then ‘excited’ by introduced light such as that from a laser or an optical fibre,” says research author Yiqing
Lu from Macquarie University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for
Nanoscale BioPhotonics.
“Disease biomarkers targeted by these nanoparticles then reveal themselves, by emitting their own specific
wavelength signatures which are able to be identified and imaged.”
A major limitation, however, is that only a single disease biomarker at a time can be distinguished and quantified
in the body using this type of detection technique. “The tissue environment is extremely complex,” says
Yiqing. “And introducing multiple nanoparticles to a site, operating at multiple wavelengths to detect multiple
biomarkers, produces too much interference.”
So Yiqing and his team have engineered innovative nanoparticles that emit light at the same frequency
(near infrared light) but that are able to be coded to emit light for set periods of time (in the microsecond-to-
millisecond time range).
“It is the duration of the light-emission and the biomarker reaction to this timed amount of light (known as
luminescence lifetime) that produces a clearly identifiable molecular signature,” he says.
“Multiple disease biomarkers can be clearly identified and imaged based on this approach as there are no
overlapping wavelengths interfering with the reading.”
Find out more
Syllabus link: Biology syllabus - Module 7 disease diagnosis
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 4