• Quick detection

  Chemistry professor Marc Porter receives R&D 100 Award for new process.

  
  
• Currently it takes the medical profession at least two hours to receive a diagnosis of diseases like HIV, Hepatitis C, smallpox, botulism, tularemia and the plague once a blood sample has been obtained.
  
  Thanks to a new development by Marc Porter, professor of chemistry, and Bob Lipert, associate scientist at the Microanalytical Instrumentation Center, that wait can be dramatically reduced - down to a diagnosis time of less than one minute.
  
  The pair, along with Concurrent Analytical, Inc., of Kailua, Hawaii, have developed a new-generation immunoassay system, the RamanprobesTM s System, for detecting and labeling antigens - proteins that serve as the body's natural defense system against infectious agents.
  
  RamanprobesTM consists of a new line of Extrinsic Raman Label (ERLTM) Reagents developed by Porter and Lipert and a compact, lightweight fiber-optic Raman Microscopy System, NanoramanTM I Instrument, developed at Concurrent Analytical, Inc.
  
  "What we've tried to do here is develop a system that will potentially reduce costs and reduce the limits of detection of infectious diseases," said Porter, who is also the director of the Microanalytical Instrumentation Center at Iowa State.
  
  What Porter, Lipert and Concurrent Analytical, Inc., have also done is win a 2003 R&D 100 Award, the only awards for applied science and scientists, which have been called the "Oscars of applied science." Sponsored by R&D Magazine, the R&D 100 Awards honor the top 100 products of technological significance marketed or licensed during the previous calendar year. The award winners will be honored at a banquet in Chicago in October.
  
  Porter and Lipert say the potential applications of Ramanprobes are limitless. In the medical field, the instrument can be used for toxicology and infectious disease applications. Where antibodies exist for the target molecule, the use of RamanprobesTM will allow for quick detection and identification of many emergency medical applications.
  
  RamanprobesTM has the ability to detect down to 100 molecules in less than 60 seconds.
  
  The process ultimately provides results that serve as a "fingerprint" for various diseases, according to Lipert.
  
  "We want to eventually develop a chip that will have simultaneous diagnosis of 15 or so different cancers," Lipert said. "We have that potential with RamanprobesTM."
  
  In the initial testing of RamanprobesTM, studies centered on early cancer detection, in particular prostrate cancer. Porter said that the reliability of cancer detection went from 30 percent to 60 percent with RamanprobesTM.
  
  But the potential doesn't stop there. Porter and Lipert have received funding from the National Defense Center of Excellence for Research in Ocean Sciences (CEROS) on the assumption that the instrument can be used for detection of weapons of mass destruction. CEROS is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. While antibodies exist for chemical weapons such as sarin, mustard, Vx this detection scheme could be used to monitor for these agents at levels close to single–molecule detection.
  
  "We want to be to produce a device that is a low-cost, affordable instrument that can actually read a blood sample at say McFarland Clinic or Mary Greeley Hospital here in Ames," Porter said. "While there is a potential use in the detection of weapons of mass destruction, it's the medical applications where we're spending most of our time.
  
  "The vision is pretty cool,: he continued. "The idea that you can prick a finger, read that sample with this instrument and get a result this quickly - it's pretty exciting."

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October 6-19, 2003