Nanoscale Analysis Labs

FiReaNGeL writes "Imagine being able to rapidly identify tiny biological molecules such as DNA and toxins using less than a drop of salt water in a system that can fit on a microchip. It's closer than you might believe: in a paper appearing next week in PNAS, a team of researchers proves for the first time that a single nanometer-scale pore in a thin membrane can be used to accurately detect and sort different-sized polymer chains (a model for biomolecules) that pass through or block the channel. This could lead to rapid detection systems for pathogens and toxic chemicals."

Incremental development, not a new idea

[tygerstripes]

Just for those few who didn't already know and can't be arsed to RTFA, the lab-on-a-chip (LOC) idea has been around for years now. It's virtually a scientific field [wikipedia.org] all of its own, and even has a journal [rsc.org].

This is an interesting development in LOC tech - I'm glad to hear about it - but the post makes it sound like a potential bloody paradigm-shift or something.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[loose_change]

It also, in concept, is an imitation of what the nuclear pores do. Maybe the mitochondrial membrane is a better simile, because it maintains a charge gradient.

What's the purpose?

[julesh]

OK, so it can detect the existence of substances by polymer size (i.e. molecular weight)? But there are thousands of substances that can assume any of a very wide range of values for this number, so doesn't this render it useless for any practical application...?

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[biohack]

As the NIST press release [nist.gov] blurb correctly indicates, mass spectrometry can be powerful for sorting and identifying biomolecules. DNA is probably the simplest example, because enzymes can chop a long strand of DNA into many small pieces. These enzymes cut only in places with well-defined sequences, so with enough information about the length of the resulting pieces the whole sequence can be reconstructed. How practical is that? Well, the method used in the various genome projects is conceptually very similar

Salt water?

[Muad'Dave]

...using less than a drop of salt water...

So is a drop of salt water somehow larger/smaller than a drop of fresh water?

Oh no!

[Alaria Phrozen]

First it was digital scales, now Weight Watcher accurate scales.. now I have to worry about how much I weight on a nano-scale?!

volume of a drop of water?

[sloth jr]

I'm sorry if I'm science stupid - but water doesn't really HAVE a standardized volume per drop, does it? How much is "less than a drop", anyway?

Re:

[mudshark]

Approximately 3.07882E-18 Libraries of Congress.

You're welcome.