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Scientists from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have developed a contact lens that can capture and detect exosomes, nanometer-sized vesicles found in bodily secretions which have the potential for being diagnostic cancer biomarkers. The lens was designed with microchambers bound to antibodies that can capture exosomes found in tears. This antibody- conjugated signaling microchamber contact lens (ABSM-CL) can be stained for detection with nanoparticle-tagged specific antibodies for selective visualization. This offers a potential platform for cancer pre-screening and a supportive diagnostic tool that is easy, rapid, sensitive, cost-effective, and non-invasive.

Exosomes are formed within most cells and secreted into many bodily fluids, such as plasma, saliva, urine, and tears. Once thought to be the dumping grounds for unwanted materials from their cells of origin, it is now known that exosomes can transport different biomolecules between cells. It has also been shown that there is a wealth of surface proteins on exosomes – some that are common to all exosomes and others that are increased in response to cancer, viral infections, or injury. In addition, exosomes derived from tumors can strongly influence tumor regulation, progression, and metastasis.

Because of these capabilities, there has been much interest in using exosomes for cancer diagnosis and prognosis/treatment prediction. However, this has been hampered by the difficulty in isolating exosomes in sufficient quantity and purity for this purpose. Current methods involve tedious and time-consuming ultracentrifuge and density gradients, lasting at least ten hours to complete.

Source: https://terasaki.org/

Imagine you have to make a speech, but instead of looking down at your notes, the words scroll in front of your eyes, whichever direction you look in. That’s just one of many features the makers of smart contact lenses promise will be available in the future.

“Imagine… you’re a musician with your lyrics, or your chords, in front of your eyes. Or you’re an athlete and you have your biometrics and your distance and other information that you need,” says Steve Sinclair, from Mojo, which is developing smart contact lenses.
His company is about to embark on comprehensive testing of smart contact lens on humans, that will give the wearer a heads-up display that appears to float in front of their eyes.

Alzheimer’s is an insidious brain disease marked by a slow mental decline that can develop unnoticed for decades before symptoms arise, but hidden signs of the condition might exist much sooner. A simple eye test may make diagnosing the earliest stages of ‘diseases of old age’ possible when people are much younger, University of Otago  researchers in New Zeland hope.

Parts of our retina have previously been proposed as biomarkers for Alzheimer’s, but researchers from Otago’s Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit have been investigating the retina’s potential to indicate cognitive change earlier in life.

Study lead Dr Ashleigh Barrett-Young says diseases of old age, such as Alzheimer’s, are usually diagnosed when people start forgetting things or acting out of character.

“This is often when the disease is quite far along. Early detection is possible through MRI or other brain imaging, but this is expensive and impractical for most.

“In the near future, it’s hoped that artificial intelligence will be able to take an image of a person’s retina and determine whether that person is at risk for Alzheimer’s long before they begin showing symptoms, and when there is a possibility of treatment to mitigate the symptoms,” she says.

The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, analysed data from 865 Dunedin Study participants looking specifically at the retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL) at age 45.

Source: https://www.otago.ac.nz/

Rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in about 30 seconds following the test, has had successful preliminary results in Mano Misra’s lab at the University of Nevada, Reno. The test uses a nanotube-based electrochemical biosensor, a similar technology that Misra has used in the past for detecting tuberculosis and colorectal cancer as well as detection of biomarkers for food safety.

Professor Misra, in the University’s College of Engineering Chemical and Materials Department, has been working on nano-sensors for 10 years. He has expertise in detecting a specific biomarker in tuberculosis patients’ breath using a metal functionalized nano sensor.

Testing a nanotube-based electrochemical biosensor

“I thought that similar technology can be used to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is a folded protein,” Misra said. “

This is Point of Care testing to assess the exposure to COVID-19. We do not need a laboratory setting or trained health care workers to administer the test. Electrochemical biosensors are advantageous for sensing purposes as they are sensitive, accurate and simple.”

The test does not require a blood sample, it is run using a nasal swab or even exhaled breath, which has biomarkers of COVID-19. Misra and his team have successfully demonstrated a simple, inexpensive, rapid and non-invasive diagnostic platform that has the potential to effectively detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The team includes Associate Professor Subhash Verma, virologist, and Research Scientist Timsy Uppal at the University’s School of Medicine, and Misra’s post-doctoral researcher Bhaskar Vadlamani.

“Our role on this project is to provide viral material to be used for detection by the nanomaterial sensor developed by Mano,” Verma said. “Mano contacted me back in April or May and asked whether we can collaborate to develop a test to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection by analyzing patients’ breath. That’s where we came in, to provide biological material and started with providing the surface protein of the virus, which can be used for detecting the presence of the virus.”

Source: https://www.unr.edu

The difficulty in spotting minute amounts of disease circulating in the bloodstream has proven a stumbling block in the detection and treatment of cancers that advance stealthily with few symptoms. With a novel electrochemical biosensing device that identifies the tiniest signals these biomarkers emit, a pair of NJIT inventors are hoping to bridge this gap. Their work in disease detection is an illustration of the power of electrical sensing – and the growing role of engineers – in medical research.

“Ideally, there would be a simple, inexpensive test – performed at a regular patient visit in the absence of specific symptoms – to screen for some of the more silent, deadly cancers,” says Bharath Babu Nunna, a recent Ph.D. graduate who worked with Eon Soo Lee, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to develop a nanotechnology-enhanced biochip to detect cancers, malaria and viral diseases such as pneumonia early in their progression with a pin prick blood test.

Their device includes a microfluidic channel through which a tiny amount of drawn blood flows past a sensing platform coated with biological agents that bind with targeted biomarkers of disease in body fluids such as blood, tears and urine – thereby triggering an electrical nanocircuit that signals their presence. In research recently published in Nano Covergence, Nunna and his co-authors demonstrated the use of gold nanoparticles to enhance the sensor signal response of their device in cancer detection, among other findings.

One of the device’s core innovations is the ability to separate blood plasma from whole blood in its microfluidic channels. Blood plasma carries the disease biomarkers and it is therefore necessary to separate it to enhance the “signal to noise ratio” in order to achieve a highly accurate test. The standalone device analyzes a blood sample within two minutes with no need for external equipment.

“Our approach detects targeted disease biomolecules at the femto scale concentration, which is smaller than nano and even pico scale, and is akin to searching for a planet in a galaxy cluster. Current sensing technology is limited to concentrations a thousand times larger. Using a nanoscale platform allows us to identify these lower levels of disease,” Nunna says, adding, “And by separating the plasma from the blood, we are able to concentrate the disease biomarkers.”

Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/