Progress towards an all-in-one disease monitoring device

Australian and British scientists are collaborating on the creation of a single miniature biodegradable device that can not only track a disease, but can also treat and monitor it. The team’s progress was reported this week at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICONN) in Canberra.

British researchers led by Professor Cameron Alexander, based at the University of Nottingham, designed DNA hybrid materials that contain sequences tagged with the element fluorine, enabling their detection at low concentrations in the body. In the meantime, University of Queensland researchers led by Associate Professor Kris Thurecht developed magnetic resonance imaging techniques to image the fluorine-containing molecules.

Speaking at ICONN, Professor Alexander said the team has demonstrated that fluorine-tagged DNA sequences can be used to precisely monitor the recognition of DNA codes (or ‘molecular ciphers’) and can also be used to observe the release of other complementary gene sequences which can be barcoded so that they are triggered by a specific biomarker — for example, a message from a disease gene. This type of ‘self-revealing switch’ could eventually be used to guide release of a drug or to monitor the progress of a treatment, dependent on what function is needed.

The detection of specific gene sequences is a vital step in developing a device to detect and treat a wide range of diseases, including bacterial and viral infection as well as numerous cancers, according to Professor Alexander. The research has been published in the journal Polymer Chemistry.