Amazing stuff! This could be breakthrough!
"A ‘thermometer’ made of quantum nanosensors can detect the temperature in individual cells. With it, researchers have found that temperature varies by as much as 1 ºC in different parts of a cancer cell.
The sensors could also detect signs of oxidative stress and the production of free radicals, reactive molecules that can damage DNA.
The crystal fragments that made up the tool didn’t seem to damage cancer cells when injected or absorbed, but the researchers want to make them even smaller so they can “spy on cellular activities” ... “It’s a fantastic milestone,” s... “It will be so useful for disease detection.”"
"... The MoQN is a technique utilizing a special kind of quantum crystal which is injected into a tissue to be monitored. The crystal reads the surrounding temperature, and this signal is read by an optical magnetic process called optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR). Conceptually, it has some things in common with the way MRI machines work ...
The MoQN is nontoxic and can read temperatures within living cells. Also, by applying a quantum property known as molecular spin, MoQNs are fabricated with incredible precision, yielding great homogeneity leading to very high accuracy. ..."
From the abstract:
"Quantitatively mapping temperature within living cells is essential for understanding subcellular biophysical processes; however, existing intracellular quantum sensors such as nanodiamonds with nitrogen-vacancy centers, quantum dots, and fluorescent proteins face limitations in material heterogeneity, cytotoxicity, and thermometric specificity.
Here, we present molecular quantum nanosensors (MoQNs) as a next-generation platform for intracellular quantum sensing. MoQNs embed pentacene molecular spin qubits within para-terphenyl nanocrystals coated with Pluronic F-127, yielding a coherent spin system with molecular-level uniformity and long spin coherence times under physiological conditions.
By chemically suppressing hyperfine interactions, we enhance spectral resolution and demonstrate spatially resolved absolute temperature sensing inside the cytoplasm and nuclei of cancer cells.
MoQNs thus offer a chemically tunable, biologically compatible platform for quantum-level detection of thermal and biochemical states of intracellular environments."
Quantum ‘thermometer’ takes temperatures inside living cancer cells "Nanosensors showed that different parts of the cell varied by as much as 1 ºC." (no public access)
Tiny molecular quantum thermometer can measure the insides of cells (original news release) "A new way to record temperatures at microscopic scales with incredibly high precision"
Intracellular quantum sensing. A diagram showing how MoQN can report the temperature from within cells. In this example, a cancer cell containing MoQN can be measured by an external ODMR when a small microwave signal is applied to activate the MoQN.
Fig. 1. Schematics of in-cell ODMR using MoQNs and CW-ODMR and pulsed-ODMR characterization.
Fig. 4. Absolute temperature measurement inside the nuclei of cancer cells.
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