Study shows diamonds can help detect cancer early

Diamonds can help detect cancer in the early stages before it becomes life threatening, according to a new study.

Physicists from University of Sydney used a synthetic version of precious stones during Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans and found it successfully detected presence of cancerous tumors.

David Reilly, a professor from School of Physics, explained how nano-diamonds could help catch cancer in earliest stage. Nano-diamonds which measure 4-5 nanometers are mostly found inside meteorites but can be produced artificially as well such as with the impact of an explosion.

Nano-diamonds have enormous beneficial properties and have been used in biomedical engineering as a way to transport drugs in the body, jaws and teeth related surgeries and blood testing.

''We know nano diamonds were of interest of delivering drugs during chemotherapy because they are largely non-toxic and non-reactive. We thought we could build on these non toxic properties realizing that diamonds have magnetic characteristics enabling them to act as beacons in MRIs. We effectively turned a pharmaceutical problem into a physics problem,'' said Reilly.

Professor Reilly and his colleagues focused on hyperpolarising nano-diamonds, i.e. aligning atoms inside a diamond to create a warning or signal detectable by MRI scanner.

''By attaching hyperpolarised diamonds to molecules targeting cancers the technique can allow tracking of the molecules' movement in the body,'' Ewa Rej, lead author of the study, said.

In 2013, an EU-funded research project DINAMO had used the unique properties of diamonds to develop a radical new way to study molecular processes in living cells.

The study, published yesterday in Nature Communications, shows how a nanoscale, synthetic version of the precious gem could catch early-stage cancers in non-toxic, non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans.