Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Soon, gold may help detect the bombs planted by terrorists. Yes, if the research results of a few scientists are any indication, gold may be used to detect explosives.

‘The Engineer’ reports that nanoscientists at Imperial College are working on nanosensors, relying on principles similar to stained glass windows in churches. Lead researcher Stefan Maier explained that small gold particles are used to create red glass, due to the way they respond to light.

Because gold particles absorb and scatter preferentially in the green, the green light is taken out of the white light coming through so that it looks red.

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This fact is now being applied to aid in the development of sensing applications, with the detection of toxins or infections other possible uses.

Last week, scientists at the University of Leicester were awarded a grant to investigate how nanotechnology, which often involves the use of gold, can be used for the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.


Again, researchers at the Stanford Centre for Innovation in In-vivio Imaging have combined the precious metal with nanotechnology and lasers to create an imaging method that could replace MRIs and PET scans.

The technique involves introducing gold nanoparticles to the human body, which latch onto cells — such as cancer cells — and can be detected with the use of a laser.

Measuring less than 1 nanometer in diameter, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology’s (IBN), one of the research institutes in Singapore, gold clusters are much smaller than currently available nanoscale imaging technologies such as semiconducting quantum dots, which are usually at least 3 nanometers in size. 1 nanometer is approximately 5 orders smaller than the breadth of a human hair.

Unlike quantum dots, the gold nanoclusters are suitable for use within the body because they do not contain toxic metals such as cadmium and lead.

This invention, which has broad implications for biolabeling and disease diagnosis, was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The gold nanoclusters’ sub-nanometer size makes it easy to target the nucleus inside the cell for sub-cellular biolabeling and bioimaging. Tracking the cell nucleus can help scientists monitor the fundamental life processes of healthy DNA replication and any genomic changes. With improved bioimaging at the cell nucleus, scientists can also study the effectiveness of drug and gene therapies.

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