• Question: have you made the dye for seeing if they have cancer yet

    Asked by agomez100 to Sarah on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      I’ve made lots of dyes and i’m now testing to see which ones work best. I’m using a technique called “FRET” where the dyes work in pairs. When the dye-pair comes into contact with a cancer chemical in the blood sample, the first dye will transfer its energy to the second dye and the second dye will become fluorescent. This is a tricky method to use but it is highly sensitive and I believe it has the best chance of detecting cancer chemicals in minute concentrations in the patients blood.

Comments