Thursday, 9th March 2006 (4148 views)

The properties of gold have been harnessed in a new experiment involving microcatilevers – minute diving board-like devices that could be used in the detection of rare diseases.

A team from Northwestern University coated a microcantilver with gold in new research aimed at improving on previous prototypes, AzoNano reports.

The gold-coated device was combined with a metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) so that it would generate an electrical signal whenever it bent in response to biomolecule binding.

This is an improvement on previous devices, which could not be used on turbid or opaque biological samples.

Team leader Vinayak Dravid, Ph.D, told Cancer Nanotech News: "We are excited by the prospect that MOSFET-embedded microcantilever approach may open up new vistas in biochemical sensing via high sensitivity, on-chip electronic detection that is amenable to massively parallel, multiplexed and remotely addressable networked systems."

It is hoped research into microcantilevers will lead to progress in the detection of diseases in biological samples.

Results of the research will be printed in Science journal.

 

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