“The method we have developed allows us to detect targets at levels that are unprecedented,” John Brennan, director of McMaster’s Biointerfaces Institute, said in a statement. “The test has the best sensitivity ever reported for a detection system of this kind — it is as much as 10,000 times more sensitive than other detection systems.”
The tool is a molecular device made of DNA that can be triggered by a molecule of the researchers’ choosing. In the presence of an indicator for a specific disease or a molecule representing a virus, the device would signal detection.
The research was published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
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