A Biosensor System Based on Thermally Blocked
Magnetic Nanoparticles
An ideal biosensor should detect target molecules directly without the use of labeled ligands or multiple washing steps. Imego has overcome these obstacles by designing a sensor system based on magnetic nanoparticles with a surface modified to bind virtually any specific molecule to be detected. Upon binding of target molecules (e.g. antibodies) to the particles, the hydrodynamic particle volume increases, i.e., the more target molecules that get stuck on the magnetic particles, the larger the particles will grow. This increase in particle size can be determined using dynamic magnetic measurements in a procedure developed and patented by Imego.
Imego has also developed an instrument capable to measure the frequency dependent magnetic susceptibility of nano particle systems and find experimentally a good correlation between antibody concentration in a sample and the observed change in hydrodynamic volume of antibody binding magnetic particles. The technique can be used for a wide variety of analyzes with biological applications. Detection of disease markers in patient samples constitute one area, other areas can be analyses of environmental samples or to follow chemical reactions or synthesis in (bio-) chemical industry.
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