iTWire - Instant disease diagnosis: via cellphone

Instant disease diagnosis: via cellphone

By Stuart Corner
Friday, 28 March 2008 10:52

Japanese cellular operator, NTT DoCoMo, claims to have demonstrated a 'molecular delivery system' that it one day hopes to incorporate into cellphones enabling instant remote diagnosis of the user's health and emotional state.

The cellphone would be equipped with a 'biochip' - a fingertip-sized microchip for biological and chemical analysis that would be capable of extracting single molecules from the user's sweat, or blood and by analysing these identify a range of diseases, or simply the person's level of stress, anxiety or excitement.

The data generated from the biochip would be transmitted to a medical specialist over the cellular network. DoCoMo says the system could be used, for example, for remote health checks or preventive medicine.

DoCoMo says it has been pioneering research into the field of molecular communication for several years and in experiments being carried out jointly with professor Kazuo Sutoh of the Department of Life Sciences and associate professor Shoji Takeuchi of the Institute of Industrial Science, both at the University of Tokyo, it has successfully demonstrated the world's first molecular delivery system for molecular communication.

According to DoCoMo the technology uses DNA hybrization to attach a molecule of interest a 'cargo molecule' to another molecule, the 'cargo transporter' and then it uses proteins that occur naturally in human cells to move the combined cargo molecule and cargo transporter onto a glass substrate for analysis.

It claims that "the experiment has confirmed the feasibility of a proposed delivery system to transport specific molecules using artificially synthesised DNAs and chemically energized motor proteins, typically found in muscles and nerve cells, which are capable of moving autonomously by converting chemical energy into mechanical work."

DoCoMo and The University of Tokyo say they are continuing their collaborative research into practical uses of molecular communication to identify applicable molecules and to develop an actual molecular delivery system for installation in a biochip.