Researchers at Oregon State University have tapped into the extraordinary power of carbon “nanotubes” to increase the speed of biological sensors, a technology that might one day allow a doctor to routinely perform lab tests in minutes, speeding diagnosis and treatment while reducing costs.
The new findings have almost tripled the speed of prototype nano-biosensors, and should find applications not only in medicine but in toxicology, environmental monitoring, new drug development and other fields.
The research was just reported in Lab on a Chip, a professional journal. More refinements are necessary before the systems are ready for commercial production, scientists say, but they hold great potential.
New research by electrical engineers at Oregon State University has confirmed that an electronic technology called “ultrawideband” could hold part of the solution to an ambitious goal in the future of medicine — health monitoring with sophisticated “body-area networks
Such networks would offer continuous, real-time health diagnosis, experts say, to reduce the onset of degenerative diseases, save lives and cut health care costs.
Some remote health monitoring is already available, but the perfection of such systems is still elusive.
