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Revolutionary Handheld Scanner That Zooms in on Disease
Ralph Weissleder at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has revealed that the revolutionary scanner is many times smaller than conventional NMR spectroscopy machines, which require huge magnets to create the powerful magnetic fields necessary to make them work.
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy works by using a powerful magnetic field to line up nuclei in a sample, and then by zapping them with radio waves that cause them to wobble.
The researchers say that the currents induced by such precessions in a nearby coil can be used to determine the chemical structure of the molecules that contain the nuclei.
Magnetic resonance imaging machines also use the same process to make non-invasive images of human bodies.
The new device, however, does not produce images.
Conventional NMR spectroscopy machines require powerful fields to line up individual nuclei.
Weissleder and his colleagues have, however, found that magnetic nanoparticles generate a much larger signal than single nuclei, and can thus be detected using the weaker fields from small permanent magnets.
The researchers say that their idea is to coat such nanoparticles with molecules that bind to specific biomolecules, or bacteria and viruses.
They say that the binding process causes the nanoparticles to clump together, producing a measurable change in the signal they produce.
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