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Gold pans out as research tool
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When it comes to searching out cancer cells, gold is an even more precious metal.
 Purdue University researchers have created gold nanoparticles that are capable of identifying marker proteins on breast cancer cells, making the tiny particles a potential tool to better diagnose and treat cancer. The technology would be about three times cheaper than the most common current method and has the potential to provide many times the quantity and quality of data, says Joseph Irudayaraj, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering.
“We hope that this technology will soon play a critical role in early detection and monitoring of breast cancer,” says Irudayaraj, leader of a research team that developed a new method for fabricating the nanoparticles. “Our goal is to see it in commercial use in about four years.”
The gold nanoparticles, or nanorods, are rod-shaped gold particles, even smaller than viruses, that are equipped with antibodies designed to bind to a specific marker on cell surfaces. Researchers analyze these surface markers, proteins on a cell’s exterior, because they can contain valuable information about what type of cell they belong to or what state that cell may be in.
“In cancer diagnosis, the ability to accurately detect certain key markers will be very helpful because certain types of cancers have specific surface markers,” Irudayaraj says.
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