Nanoparticles can aid medical diagnoses

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Nanoparticles can aid medical diagnoses

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Big News Network.com Wednesday 24th November, 2004

U.S. researchers said they have found a way to manufacture nanoparticles

that is hundreds of times faster than previous methods.

The advance could help the particles -- which are one-millionth the size

of a human hair and so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye --

become some of the most significant new products in the biomedical

field.

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia researchers have

reduced the time to create gold and silver nanoparticles at room

temperature in under 10 minutes. Previously, they said, the procedure

took up to 40 hours.

Gold nanoparticles, which are biologically benign, are used to make

biosensors for disease detection. They also produce electronic materials

and treat cancer. Silver nanoparticles can help in diagnostic biomedical

optical imaging and are used extensively as anti-bacterial agents.

If nanoparticles are to be used for optical imaging within the body, it

is pivotal to be able to generate silver nanoparticles at a specific

site within the body almost instantaneously, researchers said. Methods

that require excessive heating for long durations will have limited

biomedical utility.