Inventors at Imperial College London have developed a ‘bio responsive’ material to sense certain enzymes. The nanomaterial consists of amino acid chains that can be selected to create specificity for different enzymes. The presence of enzyme is indicated by a visible colour change. It could also be adapted to provide quantitative measurements.

It has numerous possible applications in health diagnostics and offers the potential for rapid, selective and affordable diagnostic techniques. Compared with conventional techniques, it is simple and does not require complex post-processing or sophisticated equipment. In principle, biological samples could be tested almost instantaneously using the colour change, which means an immediate diagnosis is possible.

In the longer term, the invention could also help target drug delivery. The basis of this approach is to bind the treatment drug with a nanoparticle aggregate, which is then activated at the local disease site by enzyme activity. In principle, the benefits are reduced drug doses and greater efficacy by delivering the drug compound to the necessary biological location.

Datasheet: Gold nano-particles