LiveScience reports that quantum dots may soon begin to offer a new means of diagnostics inside the body. A glowing ocean animal is lighting the way.

Special proteins that enable the creature to bioluminesce have been synthesized and fused with quantum dots by Stanford University researchers. The dots are just dozens of atoms wide, and become fluorescent when struck by specific tunable wavelengths of light.

This makes them especially promising for biomedical imagining. However, because they rely on an external light source, it’s been difficult to arrange for the light source to be present inside the body when needed.

Until now…

The sea pansy produces a protein called “amino luciferase,” according to radiology professor Jianghong Rao of Stanford. While similar in principle to the proteins that make fireflies glow, this one is more hardy — able to withstand the buffets of traveling through the body.

When these proteins emit light, it can be tuned to be captured by the affiliated nanodot(s). Since the proteins are non-toxic and comparably microscopic, it provides an ideal mechanism for delivering the energy source for fluorescence wherever needed.

Further, the Stanford team has improved on nature by strengthening the protein further and making it brighter. It makes associated quantum dots glow for up to 15 minutes.

In tests, the protein-enhanced quantum dots were injected into mice. Fluorescent imaging devices were able to detect the new type of dots but not conventional quantum dots.

What are the applications? It boggles the mind.

These dots should enable a new generation of medical imaging devices, safer and less expensive than traditional ones. It may be possible to affix additional proteins to the dot/protein matrixes, thereby creating a kind of chemical hook that leads unerringly to certain sites in the body.

It will do this with microscopic precision via injection into the bloodstream, making the procedure relatively painless as well as safe. A further advance could add a third kind of protein — one toxic only to a particular cancer for which it has affinity.

On the chemical engineering side, these new hybrid dots/proteins could be used to identify presence of impurities, and instead of complex chemical tests optical scans could determine presence of even single molecules.

I’ll be watching to see who develops this technology to commercial applications. It’s sure to happen: Stanford University has an active technology transfer arm located in the hub of Silicon Valley.

To your profitable future,
Jonathan Kolber
June 13, 2007

P.S.: I’ve got hundreds of ideas like this one. In fact, I just discovered the perfect little pharmaceutical company that has a major treatment for one of the world’s worst diseases. Virtually the entire pharmaceuticals industry is licking its chops over this $6-per-share small-cap.

Emerging Medical-Based Technologies was originally featured in the Penny Sleuth.