| Posted: August 8, 2006 |
Nanowire barcode system speeds biodetection in the field |
| (Nanowerk News) Detecting biowarfare agents in the field will become a lot easier thanks to a new barcode system based on biosensing nanowires developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers. |
| The researchers, led by Jeffrey Tok of LLNL’s BioSecurity and Nanosciences Laboratory, built submicrometer layers of different metals including gold, silver and nickel that act as “barcodes” for detecting a variety of pathogens ranging from anthrax, smallpox and ricin to botulinum. |
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| Multi-striped nanowires developed at LLNL allow rapid and sensitive immunoassays for biowarfare agent simulants. (Source: LLNL) |
| The team, led by LLNL and including researchers from Stanford University, the UC-Davis Center for Biophotonics and Nanoplex Technologies, used the multi-striped metallic nanowires in a suspended format to rapidly identify sensitive single and multiplex immunoassays that simulated biowarfare agents. |
| The researchers produced nanoscale wires by electrochemically depositing metals within the tiny cavities of porous mineral solids. They then layered the gold and silver in a specific way to produce nanowires with different characteristic stripe patterns depending on which pathogen they were trying to identify. |
| The reflection pattern and fluorescence from each stripe sequence can later be clearly recognized, similar to a barcode on a retail product. |
| “Antibodies of specific pathogens have been attached to the wires,” said Jeffrey Tok, principal author from LLNL. “This produces a small, reliable, sensitive detection system that can easily be taken into the field.” |
| The system not only applies to biowarfare agents, but could also be used during an outbreak of an infectious disease. |
| The research appears online in the journal Angewandte Chemie. |
| Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
