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Nano reaches the HeartDivya. S
Heart diseases diagnosed with ease using NEMS...
The device with nano sensors can detect heart attack and also
transmit its signalthrough a wireless interface to doctors located
remotely for quick diagnosis, said Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Indian
Institute of Technology, Mumbai, at the 97th Indian Science
Congress at a plenary session on Nano technology and education.
A three-dimensional sensor system is under the development by
Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, which is sponsored by the
department of science and technology (DST), government of India.
The rate of heart diseases as increased the death rates in India. A
study as revealed that nearly 60 percent of heart diseasesoccur in
India due to improper food habits, lifestyle of the people and the
stress caused due to occupations.More than half of the heart
attacks occur to people below 50 years due to unhealthy diet,
smoking, chewing tobacco, etc.
Nano particles, measured as one billionth of a meter (39
inches); in a polymer they generate electrical current through
biochemical process of the enzymes produced in the heart. When
there is some severe stress in the heart, excess of enzymes
(protein molecules) will be released causing pressure and exertion
on blood v
essels; which results as chest pain or cardiac arrest.
The three-dimensional sensors use nano electrical mechanical
system (NEMS), of its polymer material inorder to convert the
abnormal movements in the heart muscles into an electrical signal
for detecting a cardiac symptom, he adds. They are carrying on the
activity currently in the area of bio-sensors. They want to measure
the stress symptom (myocardial infarction) in the heart and convert
it into electrical signal. A complete point-of-care system for
myocardial infraction is inthe development stage. There system
makes use of molecular makers to diagnose and locate the cardiac
attacks, especially to detect the fatal attacks.
Data management software and sensing electronics are under
development to trackthe makers. Inorder to monitor the heart
parameters a silicon-locket is under de
velopment. There are three versions of the locket with necessary
hardware and software interfaces for downloading to a PC. The
locket is used to monitor the electrocardiogram (ECG) data of a
heart without hospital visits. Similarly, the user can also send
his data card to the hospital and they can download the ECG.
Thesystem is fed with algorithm which instructs the locket to
identify the heartbeats. The locket has a sensor which records the
hearts electrical activity or ECG.In the process, if it detects any
abnormalities then the last few seconds of the ECG data is
transmitted to a central server using the mobile phone
interface.When the mark button is pressed in the locket by the user
that segment gets market, the doctor can later check the hearts
activity in that segment. The locket canbe programmed to send SMS
about the marked data to the doctor when its connected to a cell
phone.
The system consists of i-sens or infarcsens, which is a
cantilever based biosensor array. As biosensor is a disposable
sensor and its cost should be kept low. They are undergoing study
on various types of MOS-based sensors and have fabricated many
sensors. It includes biosensor, gas sensor and also
Electrolyte-Insulator-Semiconductor (EIS) based sensors for CK-MB
detection. A MOS-based total dosesensor for high-energy radiation
has also been designed and fabricated for use in medical therapy
applications. Recently, work has been initiated on micro machined
chemical and physical sensing systems.
They are currently under the activity of fabricating devices
with critical dimen
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sions in the sub 100nm regime. In order to get a dimension of
sub 50nm, novel fabrication method is being used. Molecular
materials like conjugated polymers arealso used for the fabrication
of the nanometer sized devices.
Electrospinning method is implemented for the future materials,
which are basedon the nanofibers. Nanofiber materials are
considered as a solution to solve problems in the field of
environment, military and medical applications. The best materials
which can be used for gas sensing are conducting polymers. The
properties of the soluble conducting materials can be tuned easily.
They focus on various types of devices in the field of
nanotechnology. Few such includes: Nanometer sized spheres of
conducting polymers as building blocks for integratecircuits.
Conducting polymer junctions, their device characteristics
Actuators as sensors, valves and pumps based on conducting polymers
and ceramicoxides. Organic LEDs. Conducting polymer based
nanoelectronics, nanofibres and electronic nose.Indian Institute of
Technology, Mumbai, has developed micro-meter sized sensorsand
biosensors based on conducting polymer. As this can be used in
developing low-cost diagnostic kits for health care and they have
unique electrochemical properties. Also, they are undergoing a
study on polyaniline and PEDOT cantilevers with a view to develop
sensing applications. These studies will provide a windowto the
fundamentals of the molecular mechanisms involved in the
transduction process and a direct measure of the inter-molecular
forces. The expansion or contra
ction of the polymer film is the result of processes of ion
insertion or ejection of polymer chains. Forces generated or
exerted by these interactions. With nanometer size structures the
signal/noise ratio of such effects will become more favorable and
one can see the differences with respect to the change in ionic
radii, polarity of solvent, and polymer structure. Hence, the
magnitude of forces involved in weak interactions can be
estimated.
Ceramic actuators and gas sensors have been developed and the
nano-structured composite materials are good in terms of
sensitivity and it can be fabricated withease. Variety of
techniques is used to fabricate these structures; electrospinning,
electrochemical, microscopic techniques are few.
Nano sensors and systems are used for monitoring health and used
in most promisi
ng areas. Devices with nano structured materials are used for
both preprocessingand sensing analysis. Two or three chips are
being developed for use in medicalmonitoring or diagnostics. One of
the chip is designed with analyte preprocessing and sensing
structures, it will be made by the nanofab created. The other chips
would be with standard microcontrollers. Many structures and
devices are explored using nano materials for monitoring the health
care. It includes a siliconor polymeric filters with micro/nano
sized sieving structures; micro/nano fluidic systems for bio-object
sorting; a micro PCR; single chip electrophoresis system; a single
chip (with external light source) SPR system with nanoscale
analytewells and affinity and catalytic sensors with deep submicron
structures for better functionality and response time.
He says that construction of such portable device using nano
materials will enab
le cardiac diagnostics affordable and quick over expensive tests
carried out; itmay act as a source to reduce the number of Indians
prone to heart diseases.
