ANANTAPUR: An innovative system developed by Sri Krishnadevaraya University's Biotechnology Department has won patents from Australia, India, and Germany. The new system cuts the cost of identifying cancer cells at least by 50 per cent.
"Most significantly, it will be easy to identify cancer cells and track rare types of cancer," V Satyanarayana Swamy, senior research fellow of Indian Council for Medical Research, working with the university's Biotechnology Department and Assistant Professor Dr D Muralidhara Rao, the researchers whose work has won the patents, said.
Chemotherapy, widely employed to treat cancer, also affects healthy cells, Swamy said. "Our research will help in reducing toxicity by specifically targeting cancer cells due to its magnetic property. Our method can be used for deep tissue imaging, such as brain imaging," he explained.
SK University's system employing quantum dots will reduce toxicity, say researchers
Toxicity will be low while using quantum dots. The recovery time, too, will be reduced, he added. Dr Rao said for the past 20 years, Quantum Dots (QDs), often referred to as semiconductor nanocrystals (a crystalline particle with at least one dimension measuring less than 1,000 nanometers), have been employed extensively in a variety of applications.
These nanocrystals are used in multiplexed bio-imaging and long-term tracking experiments because of their sizebased emission intensities and non-photobleaching effects. The patent from the German government was for the stable Ni-doped CdSe/ZNS QUs with red emission and with active physical property that include optical and magnetic properties.
He said that these QDs are of high affinity and could be used for bio-imaging and cellular sorting applications. SK University Vice-Chancellor Prof Machireddy Ramakrishna Reddy congratulated the efforts of Dr Rao and his team.