Diamonds as MRI's? It sounds unlikely that the expensive gems could serve in that role, but a research team along with a physicist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; Gaithersburg, Maryland) is proving that these jewels could eventually have a stronger presence in medical science.
The Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) based-team said that it envisions diamond-tipped sensors that are able to perform resonance tests on individual cells in the body or on single molecules.
The team also includes scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (College Park, Maryland), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas).
The group went on to say that it hoped the research would lead to diamonds becoming a MRI scanner of sorts on the microscopic level. But this technique would have very low toxicity and could be done at room temperature. It could potentially look inside a single cell and allow physicians to visualize what's happening in different spots of the body.
The scientists' finding that a candidate 'quantum bit' possesses great sensitivity to magnetic fields indicates that the development of MRI-like devices to probe individual drug molecules and living cells may be possible.
When asked if the potential cost of using diamonds would be a barrier into the research, Jacob Taylor, a physicist with NIST, said that the team was actually using the nano crystals from diamonds, which are relatively inexpensive.
But there are still hurdles to cross.
"The research is bleeding edge if you will," Taylor told Medical Device Daily. "It's a little complicated to speculate on where this research will ultimately lead, but with that being said we have hopes and dreams. Our biggest hurdle now is getting the sensor exactly where we need it to be."
To understand how diamonds can be used in MRI like devices Taylor said that one has to understand the physical properties of a diamond.
The NIST explains that diamonds are formed from pure carbon and typically have small imperfections within its structure. This impurity according to researchers is known as a "nitrogen vacancy." It happens when two carbon atoms are replaced by a single atom of nitrogen, leaving the other carbon atom's space vacant. These vacancies are said to be in part responsible for diamond's luster, for they are actually fluorescent: when green light strikes them, the nitrogen atom's two excitable unpaired electrons glow to red.
Researchers are then able to use this variation in fluorescence to determine the magnetic spin of a single electron in the nitrogen. Spin is a quantum property that has a value of either 'up' or 'down,' and can therefore represent one or zero in binary computation.
The NIST explains that reading a quantum bit's spin information a fundamental task for a quantum computer - has been a challenge but the team demonstrated that by transferring the information back and forth between the electron and the nuclei, the former can be amplified, making it much easier to read.
Taylor said that the group had been working on this since 2004. If successful the potential could rival or even surpass one of the world's strongest MRI machines, the 9.4-Tesla MRI, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The goal for the device isn't just to capture better images, it's to see tissue at the molecular level, to observe changes that signal the start of disease and to help guide more effective disease treatments it's a process much similar to what Taylor and the group he works with is doing.
"The research has been ongoing since 2004," he said. "By the end of this we hope to see something smaller than a cell, but larger than a molecule."
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