The next big thing in medical diagnostics could be minutes particles of rust, iron oxide, coated with the material from which sand is formed, silicon dioxide.
These magnetic nanoparticles, a mere 29 to 230 nanometers across, can be used to trap antibodies to the virus that causes cervical cancer and to the bacteria that causes potentially lethal diarrhea.
According to scientists in Vietnam, it is relatively straightforward to immobilize on nanoparticles, synthetic or monoclonal antibodies that respond to the human papilloma virus, HPV18, and the toxic gut microbe Escherichia coli O157:H7. Once trapped in this way the antibodies can be exposed to a potentially contaminated sample. If pathogen particles are present some will stick to the antibodies and this change can then be detected by a conventional test, or assay. Conventional techniques without the benefit of nanoparticles can be accurate, but the magnetic nanoparticles improve the limits of detection by allowing just these particles to be separated from the sample before carrying out the assay so that residual cells and other substances do not interfere with the test.
