A research team at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has a porous gold nanoelectrode-based biosensor that can diagnose diseases, including cancer, using blood or urine.

An IBS research team, led by researcher Professor Cho Yoon-kyung, has developed a new biosensor to detect cancer with a single drop of blood or urine.
An IBS research team, led by researcher Professor Cho Yoon-kyung, has developed a new biosensor to detect cancer with a single drop of blood or urine.

Urine and blood biological samples include biomarkers that indicate health status, helping determine whether there is a disease.

For an accurate diagnosis, it is necessary to isolate and purify biomarkers related to diseases. However, IBS stressed that currently, only large medical facilities or laboratories could conduct such analysis, which, in turn, takes a lot of time and money.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the healthcare system is flooded with various samples. Companies have developed a point-of-care device to resolve this matter as it is simple and quick to make a diagnosis and is also cost-effective. However, there are technical difficulties in diagnosing cancer or infectious diseases with the point-of-care device as cancer or infectious disease-related biomarkers exist only in small amounts of biological samples.

Therefore, extremely sensitive detection technology is essential, IBS said.

As a solution, the research team developed a porous gold nanoelectrode to fabricate a biosensor with high sensitivity and accuracy. With the developed biosensor, the team confirmed that it is possible to diagnose prostate cancer in the field with a biological sample without going through the complicated step of separating and purifying biomarkers such as exosomes.

Professor Cho Yoon-kyung of the Center for Advanced Flexible Materials Research led the study,

The team’s porous gold nanoelectrode repeatedly applies electricity to a flat gold surface in a sodium chloride solution with micelles, a spherical shape like a dandelion seed, and refers to an aggregate of rod-shaped surfactants that have a head friendly to water and an oil-friendly tail.

By etching and re-adsorbing gold on the flat gold electrode surface through an electrochemical redox reaction by electric pulses, the team induced a reaction to grow nanostructures and form nanometer-sized pores.

The researchers used the biosensor to detect proteins attached to cancer cell-derived exosomes in urine and plasma to differentiate between patients with prostate cancer and a group of healthy people.

“This technology will provide a key stepping stone for future technology development of point-of-care devices,” Professor Cho said. “We will expand its research into developing a diagnostic chip that analyzes blood and saliva samples by utilizing the potential of the porous gold nanostructure.”

The research results were published as the frontispiece in the online edition of Advanced Materials on May 17.

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