Why did you choose this line of research?
We know that cancers have biomarkers that exist in the blood and body fluid in very low concentration, but they are volatile and degrade very quickly. So we were looking for something that current technology did not allow us to seek. We needed to figure out some kind of answer to that.
Why did you alight on nanoparticles as a tool to solve this?
Nanoparticles have been used for the opposite function: drug delivery, where they are loaded with a drug and then inserted in the body of the patient to deliver the medicine directly to the target. So we used the same concept but engineered them for the opposite goal – to capture things that are present in the body fluids.
You're working with bodily fluids outside of the body, such as blood samples?
Everything we've done so far is outside the body, but ongoing projects are injecting the particle inside the body.
What would be the advantage of studying the biomarkers inside the body?
As we know from experiments, every time we extract body fluids or tissue from the body of a patient they undergo some kind of modification, so the sample is close enough to what's going on inside the body but not exactly the same thing. One characteristic of the nanoparticle trap is that when it captures the target biomarkers they are preserved from degradation. So in vitro study would give the researcher a completely different level of understanding.
Does the trap itself hold some bait for the protein?
This is one of the key aspects of the technology. We were able to find some organic reactive dyes which proved to have a very high affinity for proteins. So binding these dyes to the nanoparticle is what makes the capturing and preservation possible.
Which cancers have you had the most success in detecting?
We are analysing a spectrum of cancers: breast, ovary, melanoma, prostate and lung – for which there is a great need of early diagnosis.
In years to come, is this something that could be available in hospitals?
That's the hope we have. The first clinical trial is on the detection of Lyme disease. A fraction of patients get a skin rash but for those without the rash it is very difficult to diagnose. So with the particles we are able to capture the antigens that come from the spirochaete that is the causative agent of Lyme disease. If we see in the urine a piece of the bacteria of the spirochaete, we are sure that the patient has Lyme disease. We are gathering all the evidence and then we will need to go first for FDA approval before it is available in clinics.
How much earlier will you be able to detect Lyme disease?
Lyme disease has a window of two to three weeks before seroconversion [production of antibodies in the host blood, indicating infection]. With our tests, we're able to detect it before seroconversion, because we're not looking for the antibodies, we just look for the spirochaete. I would say here, yes, by weeks, and earlier diagnosis would be beneficial for the prognosis.
Can you also use this technique for testing athletes for growth hormones?
We discovered the doping world features the same challenges as the biomarker discovery world. We are looking for something that is extremely dilute and volatile as well. One of the problems of detecting human growth hormone is that it metabolises very quickly. We see traces in the blood for only a few hours after the patient has been infected.
Here we are testing if the growth hormone remains in the urine longer. So basically we have a larger window of detection for the doping.
source: www.guardian.co.uk
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