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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(21):2500.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A newly developed nanosized sensor can detect minuscule levels of prion proteins that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and other diseases in animals and humans (Varshney M et al. Anal Chem. 2008;80[6]:2141-2148). The sensor, developed by scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca and Innovative Biotechnologies International Incorporated, in Grand Island, NY, resembles a tiny tuning fork that changes vibrational resonant frequency when prions bind to it.

The sensor technology, which uses a sandwich assay that immobilizes prion proteins between two monoclonal antibodies, could potentially be developed to test for prion diseases from blood samples. The investigators noted that the sensor detected prions at concentrations as low as 2 ng/mL, the smallest levels measured to date. Conventional diagnostic tests for prion diseases rely on postmortem brain samples gathered during autopsies.

A new sensor detects record low levels of the prion proteins that cause . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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