SensNews June 2020

Sensor100 2020 22 How to Gently Caress Atoms:A single oxygen atom is used as a highly sensitive sensor It is extremely difficult to study oxygen molecules on metal oxide surfaces without altering them. At TUWien, this has now been achieved with a special trick: a single oxygen atom is attached to the tip of an atomic force microscope and then it is gently guided across the surface.The force between the surface and the oxygen atom is measured, and an image is taken with extremely high resolution. Technische UniversitätWien 10 June Paper-based technology advances earlier cancer detection Washington State University researchers have developed a technology that is more than 30 times more sensitive than current lab-based tests in finding early stage cancer biomarkers in blood. The technology uses an electric field to concentrate and separate cancer biomarkers onto a paper strip. It could someday become a kind of liquid biopsy and could lead to earlier detection of and faster treatments for cancer, a dis- ease that causes more than 9.6 million deaths a year around the world. The researchers were able to detect minuscule levels of the cancer markers in tiny extracellular bubbles called exosomes in as little as 10 minutes. Ranging in size from 40 to 120 nanometers, or about 1000 times smaller in width than a strand of hair, the exosomes are thought to shuttle mol- ecules from parent cancer cells through the body, entering and then re-programming friendly cells to become cancerous. WSU Insider 4 June Research News Image of the paper-based isotachophoresis (ITP) device that isolates, enriches, and detects exosomes from a prostate cancer cell line.

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