The researchers at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Special Centre for Nano Sciences are close to developing a ‘biosensor kit’ that can detect cancer at very early stages in human beings. The kit would detect the cancer using the saliva, serum/blood of a person as a sample.
The kit will not only be cost-effective but also compact and handy, that will be almost similar in size to the diabetes detection kits available commercially. It is also expected to give results much faster as compared to the conventional cancer detecting techniques.
Though the human testing or patient sampling has not been done yet but JNU’s Special Centre For Nano Sciences has planned to arrange for the patient samples in collaboration with All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“Early detection of cancer is possible through biosensor based on nano-materials. Biosensor will detect the concentration of over-expressed proteins that will indicate cancer,” said Dr Pratima R Solanki, Assistant Professor at Special Centre for Nano-Sciences. She worked at National Physical Laboratory (NPL) as Department of Science & Technology (DST) young scientist.
Explaining the whole phenomenon, she said that ‘Kit’ would basically consist of two parts, ‘Biosensor electrodes’ and ‘electrochemical analyzer’. The biosensor electrode is a composite of cerium oxide and reduced graphene oxide.
The researchers at JNU have worked on two biomarkers ‘IL-8’ and ‘Cyfra-21-1’. She said antibodies specific to Cyfra-21-1 would be present on the electrodes and will bind with Cyfra-21-1 present in the sample of a cancer patient.
The electrochemical signal would be generated and which will alter in direct proportion to the concentration of Cyfra-21-1. The analyser will convert the electrochemical signals into digitally recordable units or give the value in digital form as given by diabetes detection kits. The centre is planning to outsource the process for developing the electrochemical analyser portion of the biosensor kit.
Researchers are also working on developing biosensor for detection of vitamin D3 in a person. The deficiency of which is associated with the diseases like rickets (softening and weakening of bones) in children and Osteomalacia in adults.
“Sunlight is a natural source of vitamin D3 and people who are rarely exposed to sunlight are most likely to develop complications related to its deficiency. In the modern lifestyle in metros many persons avoid going out in sunlight,” Dr Pratima said.