Researchers develop a platform to recognize specific target antibodies

A new study may completely change the slow, cumbersome and expensive process of detecting the antibodies that can help with the diagnosis of infectious and auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and HIV. An international research team have designed and synthetized a nanometer-scale DNA "machine" whose customized modifications enable it to recognize a specific target antibody. This new approach is said to support the development of rapid, low-cost antibody detection at the point-of-care, eliminating the treatment initiation delays and increasing healthcare costs associated with current techniques.
The binding of the antibody to the DNA machine causes a structural change which generates a light signal. The sensor does not need to be chemically activated and is rapid - in five minutes - enabling the targeted antibodies to be easily detected, even in complex clinical samples such as blood serum.
This DNA nanomachine is highly versatile that can be in fact custom-modified so that it can detect a huge range of antibodies, this makes our platform adaptable for many different diseases.
The modular platform provides significant advantages over existing methods for the detection of antibodies. It may prove to be useful in a range of different applications such as point-of-care diagnostics and bioimaging.
Besides, this platform has an advantage of low-cost. The materials needed for one assay cost about 15 cents, which makes the approach very competitive in comparison with other quantitative approaches.
These preliminary results make the researchers exciting. There are more to make this approach available to everyone.
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