New York: Researchers are developing a novel gold test strip that may have great potential for the early detection of certain heart attacks.
Scientists at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering and Peking University in Beijing are working together on the test strip for cardiac troponin I (cTn-I) detection.
The strip uses microplasma-generated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and shows much higher detection sensitivity than conventional test strips.
The new cTn-I test is based on the specific immune-chemical reactions between antigen and antibody on immunochromatographic test strips using AuNPs.
Compared to AuNPs produced by traditional chemical methods, the surfaces of the gold nanoparticles generated by the microplasma-induced liquid chemical process attract more antibodies, which results in significantly higher detection sensitivity.
The cTn-I level in patients experiencing myocardial infarction is several thousand times higher than in healthy people. It is a specific marker for myocardial infarction.
The early detection of cTn-I is therefore a key factor of heart attack diagnosis and therapy, researchers said.
The use of microplasmas to generate AuNP is yet another application of the microplasma technology developed by Kurt H Becker and WeiDong Zhu.
The microplasma-assisted synthesis of AuNPs has great potential for other biomedical and therapeutic applications such as tumour detection, cancer imaging, drug delivery, and treatment of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, researchers said.
The routine use of gold nanoparticles in therapy and disease detection in patients is still years away: longer for therapeutic applications and shorter for biosensors, they said.
