28 Oct Simple Nucleic Acid Biomarker May Enhance Bedside Diagnosis

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Adam Woolley PhD
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Brigham Young University

Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Dr. Woolley: High-performance biomarker analysis methods are usually complex and expensive. In contrast, simple and inexpensive biomarker detection methods
typically have low performance.

Our study demonstrates a simple nucleic acid measurement system that
requires no detection instrumentation. Nucleic acid mimics of microRNA were
quantified with sequence specificity down to 10 pg/mL levels.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Dr. Woolley: In the near future this technology could provide simple, rapid, and
inexpensive testing for a number of molecules related to diseases. The
device only needs very small sample volumes (about 1 microliter), which is
desirable for point-of-care diagnostics.

What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of
this study?

Dr. Woolley: Promising future directions include:
(1) commercial development of this technology, which is already in process;
(2) testing on case and control urine samples to benchmark assay performance; and
(3) expanding the range of biomolecules that can be detected with these devices.

Citation:

Debolina Chatterjee,^a   Danielle S. Mansfield^a and   Adam T. Woolley*^a  

Anal. Methods, 2014,6, 8173-8179 DOI: 10.1039/C4AY01845A
Received 05 Aug 2014, Accepted 07 Aug 2014
First published online 08 Aug 2014

Last Updated on October 28, 2014 by Marie Benz MD FAAD