In the William L. Clay building, home of the the Center of Nanoscience, Keith Stine, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, sits surrounded by books and papers that have served him well. Stine, along with Olga V. Shulga, a postdoctoral associate, Kenis Jefferson, graduate student and Alexei V. Demchenko, UM-St. Louis professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has discovered a "faster and less expensive way to identify diseases," which they have been working on since the spring of 2007. Their findings were released in a study named "Simplified Immunoassay on a Porous Support."
In this study they explain that they have developed an alternative to the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test, the basic detection process for prostate cancer. In the original test, a plastic plate was used to hold two antibodies. Bound together, the first antibody would collect a sample of blood while the second antibody, with an attached enzyme, would detect traces of abnormalities.
To explain how they improved this process, Stine said, "What we have done is replaced the plastic plate with a nanomaterial, which is a sponge like form of gold … Gold has the advantage of being inert, so you can attach molecules to the surface in a very controlled way." Molecules that serve as indicators for certain health problems could be placed into these structures. A second improvement allows them to avoid the use of two antibodies; with their method only one is needed. Stine said, "That also reduces the number of steps required to carry out a determination, so it should save time."
Stine also said that this new method is not only relegated to the confines of prostate examinations but could also be applied to the entire medical field. Stine said, "If you have a test … for example, when you go get a blood test for a certain … biomarker, which could be an indication of disease or of health, we want to use this as a method for being able to detect the biomarker and detect its concentration in a sample." Biomarkers are a huge field of study and Stine's work is only a small fraction. Stine said, "The biomarker field is very large and there's many biomarkers already known, many being discovered every week.
The current debate on the benefits of using PSA tests for screening prostate cancer pushes the need for improved testing, and discoveries and research like that of Stine and his group are definitely at the forefront. He said, "It's a different sort of feeling when you have something that could have an impact on the public in a general sense, as opposed to other kinds of publications or discoveries that are … purely intellectual accomplishment."
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