Scientists from McGill University have developed a novel technology to quickly analyze hundreds of proteins from a single blood sample in a cost-effective manner. There are around 20,000 proteins present in our bodies. But till date, only one specific protein can be detected at a time. The proteins act as biomarkers to provide key information about the health condition for both clinicians and scientists.

Milad Dagher, a Ph.D. candidate, Professor David Juncker and their colleagues from McGill's Department of Biomedical Engineering, have developed this method and a section of this work was published in Nature Nanotechnology.

With the help of multicolor fluorescent dyes, micro-beads are barcoded which enables detection of markers in the same solution. The cytometer is a laser instrument which counts the proteins that stick to the beads.

A new algorithm has been developed by the team to enable different colors of micro-beads generated with high accuracy for the improved analysis of proteins.

Milad Dagher said, "Current technologies hold a major trade-off between the number of proteins that can be measured at once and the cost and accuracy of a test; This means that large-scale studies, such as clinical trials, are underpowered because they tend to fall back on tried-and-true platforms with limited capabilities."

Their upcoming work is focused on maintaining precise detection of proteins with increased scale.