NEW METHOD: Great potential for faster diagnoses

Nanoscience researchers at the Center for Synthetic Biology have discovered a method that will make the process faster, cheaper and more accurate.

The more accurately we can diagnose a disease, the greater the chance that the patient will survive. That is why many researchers are working to improve the quality of the diagnostic process. The group of Karen Martinez at the Nano-Science Center have discovered a method that will make the process faster, cheaper and more accurate. This is possible, because they are combining advanced tools used in physics for research in biology at nanoscale, two scientific disciplines usually very distant from each other.

Many diseases can be diagnosed using so-called biomarkers. There are substances, for example, that can be measured in a blood sample, which shows that the patient is suffering from the disease in question. These biomarkers are often proteins that are found in very small quantities in the blood, making it difficult to detect them. By measuring them, the diagnosing is more precise and many diseases can be detected very early, before the patient develops severe symptoms.

Read the full story on the Nano homepage (in English) or the Science Faculty homepage (in Danish). 

Read more about Karen Martinez work here: https://synbio.ku.dk/research/researcher_profiles/karen_martinez/