Sniffing lung cancer with graphene nose



[ad_1]

When you take a breathalyzer test, you may not think about its other uses, but what if lung cancer detection could be so easy? This is what scientists at the University of Exeter are trying to do, by adopting a new approach to electronic nose technology, integrated with multilayer graphene, for the early detection of lung cancer.

Lung cancer often does not show clinical symptoms of early stage lung cancer, which can lead to frequent advanced diagnoses and subsequent complications that endanger the unrecoverable nature of abnormal cells that begin in the lungs. lungs and are likely to spread to other parts of the body. body quickly.

It is necessary to monitor the specific markers present in volatile organic compounds exhaled for safety and quality of life reasons due to the severity of lung cancer. The monitoring of cancer markers can be improved by finding early diagnosis methods, such as the development of electronic nose approaches based on 2D materials with highly sensitive and highly selective capabilities.

A team of scientists has developed a technique that could have created a highly sensitive graphene biosensor capable of detecting molecules of the most common lung cancer biomarkers to facilitate the early diagnosis of lung cancer, published in the peer-reviewed journal. Nanoscale.

The developed biosensors show that graphene has potential uses as an electrode in electronic nose devices, with a graphene of suitable configuration that can be used as a specific, selective and sensitive biomarker detector, explains Ben Hogan, PhD.

It has been demonstrated that naked multilayer graphene can contribute to the engineering of the electronic nose, being able to quickly detect the appearance of specific CMs in order to provide a high-throughput platform for functional studies and discrimination of cancer signatures. . The MLG consists of a number of layers, crossed by various natural defects, having a high chemical affinity and specificity with respect to other nearby atoms and molecules.

The results of electrical measurements for the f-MLG and p-MLG electrodes during the exposure of three CM solutions at different concentrations have been reported, where they observed a noticeable increase in the electrical conductivity of the p-MLG electrodes , especially when exposed to acetone; ethanol, isopropanol and acetone in the range of 1.4 to 3.3 x 105 ppm.

The device has the potential to identify specific markers of lung cancer as early as possible in a convenient and reusable manner, making it cost effective and extremely beneficial worldwide. Currently, there are no simple, inexpensive or widely available screening methods for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. The team believes that this could be a first step toward creating a new, improved and cost-effective cancer control system.

[ad_2]
Source link