GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Nanosprings Could Enable Handheld Medical Scanners

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 10-05-10 | Comments

Nanosprings aim to enable handheld medical devices that give instant diagnostics, yet are cheap enough to be deployed everywhere�from the rural outback to your doctor's waiting room. Oregon State University researchers recently demonstrated nanosprings holding biomolecules that could be used in bio-sensors for the production of pharmaceuticals and for the micro reactions used in mobile handheld medical "labs on-a-chip."

Table of Contents:

Nanosprings Could Enable Handheld Medical Scanners
At research centers worldwide, medical labs-on-a-chip have been under development for the diagnosis of disease in remote areas, as well as for instant lab tests at the point of care. When fashioned into sensors, the same techniques can also sniff out toxins in public areas, or monitor air pollution. To that end, Oregon State University researchers recently demonstrated how to use nanosprings to carry the biological catalysts that perform micro reactions in labs-on-a-chip.

Silicon nanosprings were invented almost a decade ago as a solution. By using the same equipment that is used to manufacture semiconductor chips�chemical vapor deposition (CVD) furnaces�silicon nanosprings are fashioned from silicon dioxide, the most common insulator used on microchips today.

Resembling the old-style curled-up phone cords, but measuring only about 60 nanometers in diameter, nanosprings can be used to carry biological materials inside their three-dimensional nanostructures. The resulting chemical reactions, according to the researchers, will be faster, cleaner and more reliable.

Silicon dioxide nanosprings resemble old-style curled-up phone cords, but can hold the biomolecules that enable handheld medical diagnostics.

Labs-on-a-chip are being developed by IBM Research, for instance, to put all of the testing procedures of a medical laboratory into a handheld device. By using semiconductor etching equipment, tiny nanoscale channels can be placed on micro-fluidic chips. Diagnostic procedures shuttle a sample of biological fluids�like breath, saliva or blood�into chambers where reactions with catalysts can answer questions about whether a patient is infected with a particular disease or not.

Next: Reducing Diagnostic Tests to Just Minutes >>