Tag Archives: Ruixue Wang

Microplasm-generated gold nanoparticles and the heart

Scientists are hoping they’ve found a better way to detect early signs of a heart attack according to a Jan. 15, 2015 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

NYU [New York University] Polytechnic School of Engineering professors have been collaborating with researchers from Peking University on a new test strip that is demonstrating great potential for the early detection of certain heart attacks.

Kurt H. Becker, a professor in the Department of Applied Physics and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and WeiDong Zhu, a research associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, are helping develop a new colloidal gold test strip for cardiac troponin I (cTn-I) detection. The new strip uses microplasma-generated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and shows much higher detection sensitivity than conventional test strips. The new cTn-I test is based on the specific immune-chemical reactions between antigen and antibody on immunochromatographic test strips using AuNPs.

A Jan. 14, 2015 NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering news release (also on EurekAlert but dated Jan. 15, 2015), which originated the news item, explains what makes these new test strips more sensitive (hint: microplasma-generated gold nanoparticles),

Compared to AuNPs produced by traditional chemical methods, the surfaces of the gold nanoparticles generated by the microplasma-induced liquid chemical process attract more antibodies, which results in significantly higher detection sensitivity.

cTn-I is a specific marker for myocardial infarction. The cTn-I level in patients experiencing cardiac infarction is several thousand times higher than in healthy people. The early detection of cTn-I is therefore a key factor of heart attack diagnosis and therapy.

The use of microplasmas to generate AuNP is yet another application of the microplasma technology developed by Becker and Zhu.  Microplasmas have been used successfully in dental applications (improved bonding, tooth whitening, root canal disinfection), biological decontamination (inactivation of microorganisms and biofilms), and disinfection and preservation of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The microplasma-assisted synthesis of AuNPs has great potential for other biomedical and therapeutic applications such as tumor detection, cancer imaging, drug delivery, and treatment of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The routine use of gold nanoparticles in therapy and disease detection in patients is still years away: longer for therapeutic applications and shorter for biosensors. The biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that the synthesis of monodisperse, size-controlled gold nanoparticles, even using microplasmas, is still a costly, time-consuming, and labor-intensive process, which limits their use currently to small-scale clinical studies, Becker explained.

Here’s a link to and citation for the paper,

Microplasma-Assisted Synthesis of Colloidal Gold Nanoparticles and Their Use in the Detection of Cardiac Troponin I (cTn-I) by Ruixue Wang, Shasha Zuo, Dong Wu, Jue Zhang, Weidong Zhu, Kurt H. Becker, and Jing Fang. Plasma Processes and Polymers DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201400127 Article first published online: 11 DEC 2014

© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This article is behind a paywall.

For anyone curious about the more common chemical methods of producing gold nanoparticles, there’s this video produced in Australia by TechNyou Education. There’s a specific technique described which I believe is one of the most commonly used and I think this can be generalized to other gold nanoparticle chemical production processes,

One more thing, this video runs over my 5 min. policy limit for videos. To do this, I battled my inclination to include something that I think is useful for understanding more about nanoparticles and my desire to make sure that my blog doesn’t get too bloated.