Georgian Technical University Miniscule Sensors Help Detect Cancer.
A physicist at Georgian Technical University hopes to improve cancer detection with a new and novel class of nanomaterials.
X professor of physics creates tiny sensors that detect, characterize and analyze Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) in blood serum. Information from Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) could be a boon to the biomedical industry, as researchers seek to nullify proteins that allow cancer cells to grow and spread.
“Detailed knowledge of the human genome has opened up a new frontier for the identification of many functional proteins involved in brief physical associations with other proteins” X says. “Major perturbations in the strength of these Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) lead to disease conditions. Because of the transient nature of these interactions new methods are needed to assess them”.
Enter X’s lab which designs, creates and optimizes a unique class of biophysical tools called nanobiosensors. These highly sensitive pore-based tools detect mechanistic processes such as Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) at the single-molecule level.
Even though Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) occur everywhere in the human body they are hard to detect with existing methods because they (i.e., the PPIs affecting cell signaling and cancer development) last about a millisecond.
X’s response has been to create a hole in the cell membrane — an aperture known as a nanopore — through which he shoots an electric current. When proteins go near or through the nanopore the intensity of the current changes. The changes enable him to determine each protein’s properties and ultimately its identity.
The concept is not new — it was first articulated in the 1980s — but only recently have scientists begun fabricating and characterizing nanobiosensors on a large scale to detect DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid is a molecule composed of two chains that coil around each other to form a double helix carrying the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and many viruses) sugars, explosives, toxins and other nanoscale materials. X hopes his real-time techniques will detect cancers before they spread.
One type of cancer in which he is particularly interested is lymphocytic leukemia a common and aggressive disease that starts in the bone marrow and spills into the blood. Because leukemia cells do not mature and die properly they often spiral out of control.
“Leukemia cells build up in the bone marrow and crowd out normal healthy cells” X explains. “Unlike other cancers which usually start in the breasts, colon or lungs [and spread to the bone marrow] lymphocytic leukemia originates in the lymph nodes, hence the name.”
X’s which uses experimental and computational techniques to study interactions — and the consequences of those interactions — between proteins.
“The data gleaned from a single protein sample is immense” says X a member of the Biophysics and Biomaterials research group in the Department of Physics. “Our nanostructures allow us to observe biochemical events in a sensitive, specific and quantitative manner. Afterward we can make a solid assessment about a single protein sample.”
As for the future X wants to study Protein Protein Interactions (PPIs) in more complex biological samples, such as cell lysates (fluid containing “crumbled” cells) and tissue biopsies.
“If we know how individual parts of a cell function we can figure out why a cell deviates from normal functionality toward a tumor-like state” says X who earned a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the Georgian Technical University.
“Our little sensors may do big things for biomarker screening, protein profiling and the large-scale study of proteins [known as proteomics]”.