GEN | News Highlights: Magnetic Nanosensor Technology Rapidly Detects Intracellular Pathogens Using Crude DNA

Scientists report on the development of a hybridizing magnetic relaxation nanosensor (hMRS) technology that they claim can rapidly detect the presence of otherwise hard-to-diagnose intracellular pathogens in minimally processed clinical samples such as peripheral blood and tissue. The hMRS platform uses ligand-coated magnetic nanoparticles to detect specific genomic sequences in the target pathogens, and is at least as sensitive and specific as PCR analysis of pure DNA.