Alf Månsson and Sven Tågerud, professors at Linnaeus University in Sweden, have been granted a patent in the US for their research on nanodiagnostics. Their ideas will, among other things, improve diagnosing for prostate cancer.
The ideas that have been patented deal with improved ways of detecting illness signals in blood samples. Through their research they have come up with a way of detecting very low levels of illness-related substances, such as, for instance, prostate-specific antigen, something that is important when a follow-up is carried out after surgery. Another possibility that comes with the idea is the ability to detect multiple markers simultaneously. As a result, diagnostics for, for instance, prostate cancer can be improved.
The patent has been given the name “Detection conjugate” and will be printed and published in the US sometime during the first months of 2014. The patent adds to an earlier Swedish patent.
“This is a major step towards the commercialization of our ideas concerning diagnostics and, generally speaking, an important recognition,” says Alf Månsson. “In addition, since we handed in our Swedish patent application, we have published a number of scientific articles which have shown that our ideas can be put into practice, for instance in J Nanobiotechnology and Nano Letters.”