A new article from Labion, recently published on ACS Nano, demonstrate how polymer nanopillar – gold arrays can be used for the ultrasensitive simultaneous detection of multiple genetic biomarkers by means of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

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This is an important step for the Euronanomed II – InNaSERSS project for the development of new more accurate diagnostic tools based on SERS for the detection of minimal residual disease in patients affected by Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The work done at Labion, in collaboration with other groups at San Raffaele Hospital and at Plasmore (a spin-off of the University of Pavia and of Joint research Centre – Ispra), has made possible to develop a new material able to enhance Raman signals up to 10.000 folds. If used in combination with gold nanoparticles, this material allows the detection of specific DNA sequences, related with the outcome of the disease, much more clearly than the commercially available kits based on fluorescence.

The full details of the work are available at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn503873d