MIPT offers supersensitive biochip to help develop new drugs

Scientists at the nanooptics and plasmonics lab of MIPT, one of Russia’s most renowned tech universities, have used graphene oxide to make a supersensitive biosensor. The sensor may help develop new drugs and vaccines, the MIPT website announced. 

The researchers say it is a new generation of chips which can make it possible to test drugs and drug candidates outside of the human body. Practice which is standard today calls for use of markers inserted into a patient. It is expected that the technology might revolutionize the entire philosophy of new drug development and help physicians defeat some of the diseases which we normally refer to as incurable. 

The solution that comes from MIPT, aka Phystech, is based on the use of surface plasmons, electromagnetic waves that occur right where a conductor and a dielectric meet as a result of resonance interaction between photons and electrons. The resonance parameters are fully dependent on the properties of a surface used, which enables the identification of a negligibly small quantity of a substance available on the surface. 

For example, the sensor is said to be able to pinpoint one-trillionth of a gram of a substance on a one square millimeter area. A device based on such a sensor could monitor molecular reactions on a real time basis. 

“By watching them react, we could understand what sort of chemical reaction is occurring, and assess its speed; which means we could be precise in determining how this or that substance impacts a cell or a pathogenic germ,” said Yuri Stebunov, one of the key developers. 

It will take some time and improvements and tests before the chip becomes standard in clinical practice. If produced on a large scale, this new graphene oxide based biochip may have a very competitive price tag of less than $10. Biochips currently available in the market cost anything between $80 and $200.

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