Vibrator Detects Protein Biomarkers of Disease, Already Tried as Concussion Detector
 

Vibrator Detects Protein Biomarkers of Disease, Already Tried as Concussion Detector
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Scientists at Purdue University have developed a novel new way of detecting biomarkers within blood and other bodily fluids, potentially opening the possibility of being able to quickly and easily detect a wide variety of diseases and monitor their progress.

The team’s microelectromechanical system (MEMS) relies on vibration to spot a looked-for biomarker within the rest of a liquid sample. Because the resonant frequencies of a protein, for example, is known, a small blood sample shaken at one of those frequencies would move differently depending on whether the protein is present or not. The variance in this motion is quite small, so the device has an array of vibrators that work in parallel to resonate small quantities of a larger sample and to then combine the measured data to identify the biomarker using statistics.

The researchers tested their setup by detecting s100خ², a protein found in the vicinity of neurons in the brain, and which is found in large quantities within the cerebrospinal fluid of concussed individuals. The same protein manages to reach the blood by squeezing through the blood-brain barrier, making it an attractive biomarker for detecting concussions easily and soon after an injury.

The technology is rather cheap to manufacture and easy to use, potentially one day making it common for use on the sidelines of American football fields and more widely in a variety of clinical applications.

Study in IEEE Sensors Letters: Detection of Traumatic Brain Injury Protein Biomarkers With Resonant Microsystems…

Via: Purdue…

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