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MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY
Smart threads store data
ANTHONY KING
US scientists have stored bits of data in a smart fabric, by using conductive threads. Woven into a shirt or lab coat, for example, the threads could store invisible passcodes to open the door of your workplace or unlock a home safe. ‘We can embroider these
conductive threads into regular textiles, and then polarise each cell [patch of fabric] with a north or south pole to embed a 0 or 1,’ explains lead author Justin Chan at the University of Washington in Seattle. The researchers took a thin strip of conductive fabric, divided it into patches or ‘cells’ 2cm in length. They then used an ordinary magnet to magnetise each cell with a north or south
NANOTECHNOLOGY Nano-scale cancer diagnoses ANTHONY KING
Diagnosing cancer is a puzzle. It demands close scrutiny of pieces uncovered by different tests. Unfortunately, the number of puzzle pieces is currently restricted by a lack of biopsy tissue for testing. Now, researchers at IBM
Research Laboratory in Zurich have turned to nanotechnology to try to obtain far more information from even tinier amounts of tissue sample. ‘In the past three years, we have worked out how to use a minimum amount of biopsy sample and get increased information,’ says IBM mechanical engineer Govind Kaigala. Usually, one tissue section on a slide equals one
test. However, a new microfluidic probe (MFP) developed by IBM researchers can scan an area covered by as few as 100 cells to provide valuable information about a tumour. Recently, researchers used
the probe to scan human tissue samples from a ‘biobank’ repository (PLOS One, 2017, 5, e0176691). Preserved tissue slides had their paraffin cover etched away with solvent; the tissue was tested for cancer biomarkers using the MFP on a fraction of the area.
The sample was returned to
the repository. ‘There are huge repositories of tissue samples. With our technique we could dip into these to test new [cancer] markers without destroying
them,’ Kaigala explains. ‘Archived tissue samples
represent an under-used treasure trove for molecular biologists and clinical researchers to understand cancer,’ comments Chang Lu, microfluidics and precision medicine expert at Virginia Tech, who is not involved in the research. ‘The developed technology allows repeated molecular testing of these archived samples with low consumption. This is very significant and represents a real niche application of microfluidics to cancer studies.’ Standard microfluidics deals with tiny volumes of liquids in closed channels. The IBM lab developed a scanning
microfluidic technology that can shape liquids in the ‘open space’ over surfaces. It relies on a microfluidic probe with special microfabricated structures for localising a liquid of interest on a surface. The probe has already been used to improve FISH – fluorescent in situ hybridisation – tests, used to classify cancers. Cell biologist Deborah Huber at IBM Research has used MFP to study breast cancer cells (Biomed. Microdevices; doi: 10.1007/s10544-016-0064-0). She is also using the probe with FISH to identify Her2 biomarkers associated with an aggressive form of breast cancer. The technology could lead to faster, cheaper Her2 tests.
pole, equivalent to 0 or 1; these ‘bits’ of data – zeros and ones - could subsequently be read by a smartphone. ‘All smartphones can sense
whether conductive thread is nearby,’ Chan explains, because they contain a component called a magnetometer embedded in smartphones to provide a digital compass.
The fabric can be thought of as a hard disk, storing data on our clothes. In one example, researchers stored a passcode to an electronic door lock on a patch of conductive fabric sewn into a shirt cuff, and then unlocked the door by waving the cuff in front of an array of magnetometers. The fabric patch retained its data after machine washing, drying and ironing. Like hotel
keys, however, the strength of the magnetic signal drains away with time, losing around one-third of its strength after a week, according to researchers presenting their work at a conference in October in Québec City, Canada (Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, doi:10.1145/3126594.3126620). Possible applications include as an unobtrusive alternative to barcodes or RFID tags for use in clothing stores, and in uniforms for medical staff or hotel employees, to gain access to authorised areas. The computer scientists are now improving their fabric to store information reliably over longer periods, Chan says. Steve Beeby at the University
of Southampton, UK, says the technology is ‘a good idea,’ but points out that ‘at present it stores a limited amount of data. This could be improved by reducing the size of the magnetic poling rig and data reading system. This would make reading it with a normal phone difficult and require bespoke reading equipment, but it should be entirely possible.’ Beeby is leading an EPSCR-
funded project that knits together his interests in energy harvesting and wearable smart textiles. He predicts that smart fabrics, or e-textiles, will become widespread in medical, military and fashion domains. However, ‘the technology has to be made reliable, practical and cheap,’ he says. ‘There are lots of research challenges remaining.’
8 09 | 2017
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