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IIT-B: Sniffing out lung cancer, explosives
Why it is in news?
- Clinical applications for early-stage detection will become possible once validated on humans - Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have set the stage to possibly sniff out in about a minute early-stage lung cancer from exhaled breath.
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- A two-member team has developed a platform that detects volatile organic compounds such as benzene, acetone, benzaldehyde and ethanol in a gas phase at single molecular levels.
- These organic compounds in exhaled breath are clinically established biomarkers for early stage lung cancer. The same platform can also be used to monitor air-pollution levels or detect explosives like TNT (trinitrotoluene).
- The volatile compounds have been detected using lab samples and clinical applications for detecting early-stage lung cancer will become possible once validated on human subjects.
- Raman scattering- Since Raman scattering is an inherently weak phenomenon, the researchers turned to surface-enhanced Raman scattering to dramatically increase the sensitivity of the platform such that it detects molecules at extremely low concentrations using a small amount of sample.
- When liquid containing the nanoparticles is subjected to a thermal gradient (one end is kept hot while the other is cold) the nanoparticles tend to migrate from the hot end to the cold one.
- As a result, the concentration of nanoparticles at the cold end increases. When the concentration of nanoparticles at the cold end increases they self-assemble to form the cage.
- The cage then traps the molecule, whether it is in a liquid or gas state.
- Once the molecule gets trapped, the Raman spectrum gets enhanced as the cage is made of nanoparticles.
- Since testing the technique on human subjects for early-stage lung cancer detection is riddled with ethical and clinical challenges, the researchers looked at low-hanging fruit.
- This platform is particularly suited for the detection of plastic explosives such as TNT and RDX.
- To detect the presence of explosives, air sample containing the molecules is forced into water that contains nanoparticle cages; the molecules get trapped in the cages.
- The presence of molecules is detected by shining laser and measuring the Raman spectrum. The entire process of sample collection and signal acquisitions takes about 2-3 minutes.
Source
The Hindu