A new optical sensor can detect a single molecule of an enzyme produced by cancerous cells. Physicists and engineers at Case Western University developed the biosensor, which is one million times more sensitive than the best sensor available today. With this drastic improvement in biosensing technology, cancer could be detected much earlier than before. “The prognosis of many cancers depends on the stage of the cancer at diagnosis,” said Giuseppe “Pino” Strangi, who led the project.
To make the ultra-sensitive sensor, the Case Western researchers engineered a metamaterial made from thin layers of reflective and conductive gold and transparent aluminum oxide, a dielectric. The sensor identifies specific cancers by their signature light shift. “It’s extremely sensitive,” Strangi said. “When a small molecule lands on the surface, it results in a large local modification, causing the light to shift.” The technology can help detect which specific subset of cancer a patient has, which will help medical providers plan the best treatment.
This new sensing technology may help us not only detect cancers, but what subset of cancer, what’s driving its growth and spread and what it’s sensitive to. The sensor, for example, may help us determine markers of aggressive prostate cancers, which require treatments, or indolent forms that don’t.
The researchers describe the science behind the sensor in a paper that published in the journal Nature Materials.
