Researchers use gold nanoparticles to diagnose flu in minutes

Arriving at a rapid and accurate diagnosis is critical during flu outbreaks, but until now, physicians and public health officials have had to choose between a highly accurate yet time-consuming test or a rapid but error-prone test.

A new detection method developed at the University of Georgia and detailed in the August edition of the journal Analyst, however, offers the best of both worlds.

By coating gold nanoparticles with antibodies that bind to specific strains of the flu virus and then measuring how the particles scatter laser light, the technology can detect influenza in minutes at a cost of only a fraction of a penny per exam.

''We've known for a long time that you can use antibodies to capture viruses and that nanoparticles have different traits based on their size,'' said study co-author Ralph Tripp, Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar in vaccine development in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. ''What we've done is combine the two to create a diagnostic test that is rapid and highly sensitive.''

Working in the UGA Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, Tripp and co-author Jeremy Driskell linked immune system proteins known as antibodies with gold nanoparticles. The gold nanoparticle-antibody complex aggregates with any virus present in a sample, and a commercially available device measures the intensity with which the solution scatters light.

Driskell explained that gold nanoparticles, which are roughly a tenth of the width of a human hair, are extremely efficient at scattering light. Biological molecules such as viruses, on the other hand, are intrinsically weak light scatterers. The clustering of the virus with the gold nanoparticles causes the scattered light to fluctuate in a predictable and measurable pattern.