News

Scientists at Durham harness the power of light to predict and fight disease

(6 January 2006)

New ways to use the power of light for earlier medical diagnosis and treatment could be on the way, according to the latest research at Durham University.

The Institute, which draws on several branches of science to develop new applications for the control and manipulation of light, is working on a technique that could help doctors to identify mutations in patient DNA much more quickly than at present. The technique hunts out mutated or damaged DNA sequences, allowing medical staff to identify patients that will be resistant to specific drugs or treatments or may be susceptible to specific diseases such as cancers. The technique which could be ready for use in hospitals in the next three to five years, has the potential to save thousands of lives every year. Current tests rely on biochemistry and a hospital lab can process about 20 DNA sequences from patients per week. Using an optical method, the rate could be as much as 20 per hour, say the Durham researchers. Professor Andy Monkman, an applied physicist who is Director of the Durham Institute, says: “We are entering a whole new field of bio-photonics. The simplest way to describe photonics is the interaction of light with matter. You can control light and make it do things for you, so if we can develop a diagnostic system based on light and optics, it may be possible to do the scanning in the doctor’s surgery. You wouldn’t have to send samples away to be evaluated in a hospital.” The Durham team is looking at ways to measure the nucleotide sequence in DNA, using luminescent polymers. The polymer is used to absorb light and then transmit it to a protein nucleic acid (PNA) which has read a specific DNA sequence. Only when the PNA has correctly read the DNA sequence does it light up. This makes it possible to identify mutations in patient DNA that could indicate developing illness, or resistance to a particular type of treatment. The research team is now reaching out to business and industry to explore partnerships at an event scheduled for Monday 9 January with attendance from regional organisations such as One NorthEast, councils and science-focused bodies. The principle behind the methodology has been proved to work and there is still a considerable amount of development work to be done, but the aim is to introduce bio-photonics to the world of medical diagnostics. Photonics is most prominently used in the development of increasingly sharper, brighter and more flexible display screens for mobile phones, computers, televisions and other information display systems. Other applications include optical data storage and optical computing; sensors and probes for chemical, industrial or biomedical analysis and testing; laser-based cutting tools.