Shrink wrap used to identify biomarkers

A new nanotechnology method that makes use of simple shrink wrap could be used to provide highly sensitive, extremely low-cost diagnosis of infectious diseases.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine believe the technique could be used in cases of suspected HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria infection.

"Using commodity shrink wrap and bulk manufacturing processes, we can make low-cost nanostructures to enable fluorescence enhancements greater than a thousand-fold, allowing for significantly lower limits of detection," said Michelle Khine, a biomedical engineering professor and co-author of the report, which was published in The Optical Society's journal Optical Materials Express.

She explained many infectious diseases have very few identifying molecules, but this platform has the potential to amplify the signal so that even a single molecule can be detected.

Although the process is currently using expensive equipment, the researchers believe their work will lead to an integrated, low-cost device to trap and identify biomarkers.