10-01 :: January 2010
nanotimes
35
News in Brief
Nanosensors //
Yale Researchers Measure Cancer Biomarkers in Blood
A
team led by Yale University resear-
chers has used nanosensors to mea-
sure cancer biomarkers in whole blood
for the first time. The team – led by Mark
Reed, Yale’s Harold Hodgkinson Professor of
Engineering & Applied Science, and Tarek
Fahmy, an associate professor of biomedical
and chemical engineering – used nanowire
sensors to detect and measure concentra-
tions of two specific biomarkers: one for
prostate cancer and the other for breast
cancer. The study marks the first use of
label-free nanosensors with physiological
solutions, positioning this technology for
rapid translation to clinical settings.
Blood is filtered and transferred to nanosensors
on a chip, which can detect and measure cancer
“Nanosensors have been around for the past deca-
biomarkers. © Mark Reed/Yale University
de, but they only worked in controlled, laboratory
settings,” Reed said. “This is the first time we’ve been
able to use them with whole blood, which is a com-
plicated solution containing proteins and ions and
other things that affect detection.” Eric Stern, Aleksandar Vacic, Nitin K. Rajan, Jason M. Cris-
cione, Jason Park, Bojan R. Ilic, David J. Mooney, Mark
The new device could also be used to test for a wide A. Reed, Tarek M. Fahmy: Label-free biomarker detec-
range of biomarkers at the same time, from ovarian tion from whole blood, In: Nature Nanotechnology AOP,
cancer to cardiovascular disease, Reed said. “The December 13, 2009, DOI:10.1038/nnano.2009.353
advantage of this technology is that it takes the same

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NNANO.2009.353
effort to make a million devices as it does to make
just one. We’ve brought the power of modern micro-

http://www.eng.yale.edu/reedlab/
electronics to cancer detection.”