Iranian scientists develop leukemia diagnosis method

A team of Iranian researchers from Isfahan University have successfully developed a method to diagnose leukemia in less than 20 minutes.
The scientists have designed and developed a leukemia DNA biosensor based on modified gold nano particles, which can diagnose the disease in less than 20 miniutes.

Leukemia is a type of blood cancer characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells that can affect the blood, bone marrow, heart, and lymphoid system.

Although the exact cause of leukemia is still unclear, the disease can induce failure in multiple organs.

Like many other cancers, Leukemia results from DNA mutations that may happen spontaneously or as a result of exposure to radiation or carcinogenic substances.

“As mutation of genes is one of the key factors causing leukemia and DNA biosensors possess high sensitivity in diagnosing the cancer, the newly found method which is based on DNA analysis can be very useful,” said Isfahan University Professor Ali-Asghar Ensafi.

“We parted one sequence of the DNA which has caused the disease in the biosensor and put it on gold nano particles as a bed and then the sequence could easily identify its pair in the blood sample,” Ensafi explained.

Ensafi emphasized that as DNA sequences are all unique like fingerprints, the new method can be very accurate.

Air pollution, stress, fear are among the factors that can cause gene mutation and consequently cancer. While laboratories are not able to diagnose cancer at the early stages of the disease, the biosensor can detect it even in low densities.