ZAP / Dall-E-2
They are brilliant, biological and can help save lives. New sensor based on quantum mechanics is manufactured by the human body itself.
Quantum sensors made from a glowing protein can be produced by living cells and can be used to measure small changes in the body with much greater precision.
This could one day help early detection of diseasesu in tracking cell formation, says .
The sensors, already successfully tested on rats, are based on quantum mechanical property of spin and can measure temperature, magnetic fields and other phenomena much more sensitively than conventional devices.
Innovation is based diamonds that contain a microscopic defect that makes your spin interact with external magnetic fieldsmaking the diamonds shine in a measurable way.
Although these devices are sensitive, no one has yet been able to direct them to specific cellular processes.
The key to the sensor lies in a common fluorescent protein used in biological research called enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (EYFP).
“We want to obtain something on the scale of a few nanometers that is biocompatible”, says the researcher David Avshalom. “We can try manufacture a molecular system and make it biocompatible, that’s one way. The other way is to start with something that is biological, like a protein.”
To make the protein work as a quantum sensor, Awschalom and his colleagues fired a blue laser at the fluorophorethe light-sensitive compound it contains, to temporarily change the spin of its electrons, they explain in the published in November last year. Electric fields or temperature changes can then be read by a red laser.
The researchers showed that the sensor’s quantum properties could be precisely controlled using microwaves and measurements using the red laser.
They further produced the protein sensor in a solution at room temperature and showed that it was stable. “It’s amazing that you cancoherently control a spin in a protein at room temperature“, it says Eric Gauger professor at Heriot-Watt University, in the United Kingdom.
EYFP, which is modified from a glowing protein first extracted from bioluminescent crystal jelly ((equal victory) can be linked to any protein produced inside a cell, genetically modifying the cell’s protein production processes.
The location of the protein can then be tracked using its fluorescent properties. “We have the ability to use lighting and microwave control to not only see where they are, but also to ddetect the magnetic environment around these proteins“, says Gauger.
Now, scientists hope that the sensor can be used in early detection of diseases or in tracking cell formation processes.
“We are taking advantage of what people know how to do well, but this gives us a wealth of additional potential information,” he concludes.
