MELBOURNE: Scientists have developed nanoparticle-based imaging technique that can detect various types of breast cancer, and other diseases, without the need for extracting tissue samples from the patient.
The research, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, opens up a new avenue in minimally invasive disease diagnosis.
“The use of nanoparticles for bio-imaging of disease is an exciting and fast-moving area of science,” said Yiqing Lu from Macquarie University in Australia.
“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,” Lu said.
“Disease biomarkers targeted by these nanoparticles then reveal themselves, by emitting their own specific wavelength signatures which are able to be identified and imaged,” he said.
A major limitation however is that only a single disease biomarker at a time is able to be distinguished and quantified in the body using this type of detection technique. (AGENCIES)
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