Lead author of a new study, Ciro Chiappini, PhD, says this new technology could lead to advancements in personalized medicine
Scientists at King’s College London have developed a nanoneedle patch that offers a painless alternative to biopsies that also delivers quicker and more accurate results.
As reported by Phys Org, new research published in Nature Nanotechnology shows that these new patches could be the future of diagnostics. As common as traditional biopsies are, they can be painful and often patients are deterred from follow-ups as well as seeking out treatment and early diagnosis.
“We have been working on nanoneedles for twelve years, but this is our most exciting development yet. It opens a world of possibilities for people with brain cancer, Alzheimer’s, and for advancing personalized medicine. It will allow scientists—and eventually clinicians—to study disease in real time like never before.” said Ciro Chiappini, PhD, senior lecturer at King’s College London and lead author of the study.
The lead author of the study, Ciro Chiappini, PhD, senior lecturer at King’s College London said the new development doesn’t disrupt the cell membrane in a way that cannot be repaired. (Photo copyright: King’s College London)
How it Works
The patches are made up of tens of millions of microscopic needles that are 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and do not remove tissue. This causes no damage and pain while the nanoneedles extract molecular fingerprints from the tissue. The sample is then analyzed using both mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence.
“This approach provides multidimensional molecular information from different types of cells within the same tissue. Traditional biopsies simply cannot do that. And because the process does not destroy the tissue, we can sample the same tissue multiple times, which was previously impossible.” said Chiappini of the process. The study focused on lipids and applied the patch to brain cancer tissue of human origin and mice.
Potential Limitations
Additional reporting by Science News looks into some of the possible drawbacks of the technology.
The patch can’t sample tissue that exists deeper in the body, yet Chiappini says that physicians can use the patch during surgery to get fast results on tissue they are operating on. “It’s very much a surface technology, which is potentially [both] a limitation and a feature,” he says.
Phys Org explained the potential during brain surgery. A surgeon would apply a patch to a “suspicious area” and receive results within 20 minutes, providing the surgical team with impactful information in real-time.
Less Pain, More Gain?
It is no secret that patients will often try to avoid or put off uncomfortable medical procedures like biopsies. This new development is part of an ongoing larger trend—making medical procedures more appealing to encourage higher percentages of patients to seek care and receive treatment. As recently reported by Dark Daily in the article entitled, “University of Texas Study Shows Self-Collection Boosts Cancer Screenings among Women,” a new at-home collection kit to replace a traditional Pap smear may help boost early detection of cervical cancer in women.
This new technology and trend toward less painful procedures suggests that patients will be more inclined to participate in pathology exams if they were less invasive and uncomfortable or painful. Pathology professionals should keep on eye on future developments in this space.
Biopsies are not yet ready to become obsolete, as the patch is still in its early stages and more research is needed.
The ASBMB story notes that nanopore technology depends on differences in charges on either side of the membrane to force DNA or RNA through the hole. This is one reason why proteins pose such a challenge.
“Think of a cell as a miniature city, with proteins as its inhabitants. Each protein-resident has a unique identity, its own characteristics, and function. If there was a database cataloging the fingerprints, job profiles, and talents of the city’s inhabitants, such a database would undoubtedly be invaluable!” said Behzad Mehrafrooz, PhD (above), Graduate Research Assistant at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in an article he penned for the university website. This research should be of interest to the many clinical laboratories that do protein testing. (Photo copyright: University of Illinois.)
How the Maglia Process Works
In a Groningen University news story, Maglia said protein is “like cooked spaghetti. These long strands want to be disorganized. They do not want to be pushed through this tiny hole.”
His technique, developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, uses electrically charged ions to drag the protein through the hole.
“We didn’t know whether the flow would be strong enough,” Maglia stated in the news story. “Furthermore, these ions want to move both ways, but by attaching a lot of charge on the nanopore itself, we were able to make it directional.”
The researchers tested the technology on what Maglia described as a “difficult protein” with many negative charges that would tend to make it resistant to flow.
“Previously, only easy-to-thread proteins were analyzed,” he said in the news story. “But we gave ourselves one of the most difficult proteins as a test. And it worked!”
Maglia now says that he intends to commercialize the technology through a new startup called Portal Biotech.
Detecting Post-Translational Modifications in the UK
In another recent study, researchers at the University of Oxford reported that they have adapted nanopore technology to detect post-translational modifications (PTMs) in protein chains. The term refers to changes made to proteins after they have been transcribed from DNA, explained an Oxford news story.
“The ability to pinpoint and identify post-translational modifications and other protein variations at the single-molecule level holds immense promise for advancing our understanding of cellular functions and molecular interactions,” said contributing author Hagan Bayley, PhD, Professor of Chemical Biology at University of Oxford, in the news story. “It may also open new avenues for personalized medicine, diagnostics, and therapeutic interventions.”
Bayley is the founder of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a genetic sequencing company in the UK that develops and markets nanopore sequencing products.
The news story notes that the new technique could be integrated into existing nanopore sequencing devices. “This could facilitate point-of-care diagnostics, enabling the personalized detection of specific protein variants associated with diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders,” the story states.
In another recent study, researchers at the University of Washington reported that they have developed their own method for protein sequencing with nanopore technology.
“This opens up the possibility for barcode sequencing at the protein level for highly multiplexed assays, PTM monitoring, and protein identification!” Motone wrote.
Single-cell proteomics, enabled by nanopore protein sequencing technology, “could provide higher sensitivity and wider throughput, digital quantification, and novel data modalities compared to the current gold standard of protein MS [mass spectrometry],” they wrote. “The accessibility of these tools to a broader range of researchers and clinicians is also expected to increase with simpler instrumentation, less expertise needed, and lower costs.”
There are approximately 20,000 human genes. However, there are many more proteins. Thus, there is strong interest in understanding the human proteome and the role it plays in health and disease.
Technology that makes protein testing faster, more accurate, and less costly—especially with a handheld analyzer—would be a boon to the study of proteomics. And it would give clinical laboratories new diagnostic tools and bring some of that testing to point-of-care settings like doctor’s offices.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can expect to see new technology translated to a wide variety of diagnostic tests
Researchers claim a new diagnostic technology for detecting the HIV virus is 10 times more sensitive than traditional techniques. More remarkable is the fact that this new technology enables analyte detection at very low concentrations with the naked eye!
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers won’t see this technology enter clinical use for some time. That is because the developers hope to deploy the accurate, fast, and very cheap HIV medical laboratory tests in Africa first. Once validated in actual clinical use, this radically innovative technology could be adapted for use in a wide variety of clinical laboratory tests.
