A team of researchers have developed a new, safer and noninvasive diagnostic technique that will make patient's stomach turn bright.
Lead author and Ph.D. student Silvia Fontenete from the Nucleic Acid Center at the University of Southern Denmark/Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, University of Porto in Portugal, said that early diagnosis does not only prevent ulcers from developing, it can also prevent the development of cancer.
The researchers' new approach is to make the stomach glow bright fluorescent green without taking tissue samples from it.
Fontenete said that their laboratory experiments suggest that one day it will be possible for doctors to send some specially designed molecules down in the stomach, where they will make H. pylori glow brightly green.
To see the green light the doctor will send a small micro-camera into the stomach.
To achieve their results, the researchers had to overcome two major challenges: The first challenge was to create the special molecules that can both detect H. pylori bacteria and function at approx. 37 degrees Celsius, which is the temperature of the human stomach. The second challenge was that the molecule should be able to function in the extremely acidic environment of the stomach.
Both challenges were solved by working with the so-called Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA), some special synthetic molecules developed by Silvia Fontenente's research director, Professor Jesper Wengel at University of Southern Denmark.
The new article has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
