Henrik Schiøtt Sørensen is co-author on a paper accepted in the respected journal Science. The paper describes measurements conducted in the period from 2003 to 2006 at Vanderbilt University in USA by Professor Darryl J. Bornhop and five graduate students including Henrik Schiøtt Sørensen, who is now employed at Risø DTU as a post. doc.
The group has shown in a micro flow system, how you can measure how proteins react, without the use of labels, and – just as important – without attaching the proteins to a surface. The latter inevitably perturbs the measurements.
“We place the proteins in a biological relevant liquid and can then determine the reaction kinetics through the refractive index. The technique is quite simple, but is thoroughly tested, and we have shown that we can see much smaller changes in considerable less sample volume than anyone else.” says Henrik Schiøtt Sørensen.
The backscatter interferometry technique has been described in several other scientific journals, but this pioneering work published in Science shows free solution molecular interactions are now possible.
Application perspectives
The measurement principle is patented, and there is a wide perspective of applications. E.g. it could be used for detecting cardiac markers in blood serum or for thermodynamic determinations, as explained in the paper. The latter could be used by the pharmaceutical industry for testing of new drugs.
See the article in Science |