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Tuesday, 8th November 2005 (5568 views)

A new gold imaging technique could be used in the fight against cancer, new research has indicated.

Researchers at Purdue University, Indiana, are hailing the new method - which uses gold nanorods - as a possible breakthrough in the quest for powerful imaging techniques able to aid early detection of the disease.

The researchers' tests showed that the technique could produce images almost 60 times more powerful than conventional ultra-sensitive imaging methods using fluorescent dyes.

"To be able to detect cells at an early stage of a disease such as cancer, it is important to have a reliable technique that has sensitivity at the single-particle level," said Alexander Wei, Purdue University's associate professor of chemistry.

"The gold nanorods demonstrate that [the research's] nonlinear imaging methods are capable of this level of detection."

The nanorods were injected into mice and it was found that they were 58 times brighter than traditional rhodamine techniques.

The technology - which uses gold rods 200 times smaller than a red blood cell - is used to analyse blood vessels and underlying tissue.

 

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