Ultrasensitive nanomechanical biosensor can detect many diseases in real time

06/12/2015 - 00:00

Two young researchers working at the MIPT Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics, Dmitry Fedyanin and Yury Stebunov, have developed an ultracompact highly sensitive nanomechanical sensor for analyzing the chemical composition of substances and detecting biological objects, such as viral disease markers, which appear when the immune system responds to incurable or hard-to-cure diseases, including HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and many others. The sensor will enable doctors to identify tumor markers, whose presence in the body signals the emergence and growth of cancerous tumors.

The sensitivity of the new device is best characterized by one key feature: according to its developers, the sensor can track changes of just a few kilodaltons in the mass of a cantilever in real time. 

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Ref:  All-nanophotonic NEMS biosensor on a chip.  Scientific Reports (2015) | DOI:10.1038/srep10968