Proteins are one of the most important classes of biomarkers – biological molecules indicative of a disease or health of an individual. The detection of proteins is critical in a variety of tests; from the diagnosis of malaria, through the detection of heart attacks, to cancer screening and monitoring. The most common way to detect these biomarkers is to use a biochemical test known as an immunoassay, which is the basis of any pregnancy test. As with any test, improving accuracy, means more precise results and now appearing on the cover of the peer-reviewed journal Analytical Chemistry scientists have made a significant improvement. The achievement comes from an international team of scientists from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and IBM Research in Zurich who have jointly developed a technique which can improve the sensitivity of protein detection in immunoassays by more than 1,000-fold, when compared to a standard immunoassay implementation. The team’s method is based on a simple piece of hardware – a microfluidic chip containing flow channels the width of a human hair. What makes this technique particularly important is that it works incredibly well when protein biomarkers are present in extremely small numbers, as is the situation during the early stages of a disease. Moran [...]
Proteins are one of the most important classes of biomarkers – biological molecules indicative of a disease or health of an individual. The detection of proteins is critical in a variety of tests; from the diagnosis of malaria, through the detection of heart attacks, to cancer screening and monitoring. The most common way to detect these biomarkers is to use a biochemical test known as an immunoassay, which is the basis of any pregnancy test. As with any test, improving accuracy, means more precise results and now appearing on the cover of the peer-reviewed journal Analytical Chemistry scientists have made a significant improvement. The achievement comes from an international team of scientists from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and IBM Research in Zurich who have jointly developed a technique which can improve the sensitivity of protein detection in immunoassays by more than 1,000-fold, when compared to a standard immunoassay implementation. The team’s method is based on a simple piece of hardware – a microfluidic chip containing flow channels the width of a human hair. What makes this technique particularly important is that it works incredibly well when protein biomarkers are present in extremely small numbers, as is the situation during the early stages of a disease. Moran [...]
