Purdue University researchers have developed a way to detect
and measure cancer levels in a living cell by using tiny gold particles with
tails of synthetic DNA.
A team led by Joseph Irudayaraj, professor of agricultural
and biological engineering, used gold nanoparticles to target and bind to fragments
of genetic material known as BRCA1 messenger RNA splice variants, which can
indicate the presence and stage of breast cancer. The number of these mRNA
splice variants in a cell can be determined by examining the specific signal
that light produces when it interacts with the gold nanoparticles.