The technology underlying this new advance springs from development work on nanomechanical olfactory sensors, as pursued by the research teams at IBM in Zurich and at the University of Basel . To date, applications of this work are mainly in quality and process control, where the technology is used in sensing devices for gaseous analytes, such as process gases or solvent vapors. Such devices are not limited to gaseous environments, but also function in liquids. This led the way to the research now reported in Science on using the biomechanical sensors in biochemistry and medical diagnostics. The method is based on directly transforming specific biochemical recognition into a nanomechanical motion.
Hybridization is a prominent example of molecular recognition.
Each cantilever is coated on one side by specific biomolecules. When immersed in solution, molecules of an injected substance dock to a layer of receptor molecules that have been attached to one side of the cantilever. Sensitizing an array of cantilevers, each with a different receptor, allows docking of different substances in the same solution. Core of the instrument is the liquid cell in which the cantilevers are mounted. The scientific report on this work has been published in Science , Vol.