photo by: University of Kansas

The skyline of the University of Kansas is pictured.

A University of Kansas professor is leading a team of researchers from Kansas and Louisiana whose work could reveal new clues about diseases and how they develop.

Steve Soper, professor at KU’s departments of chemistry and engineering, along with his team, are developing nanotechnology that can identify diseases and health anomalies by analyzing the structure of proteins involved in the disease.

The effort is backed by a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation and could change the ways in which physicians detect, monitor, and treat complex diseases, such as cancer, according to a university press release.

“The instrument we’re developing really creates a paradigm shift in how proteins are analyzed,” Soper said. “This is going to have unique biological capabilities and offer great research opportunities, both on the discovery side, answering questions in basic biology, and the translation side, earlier detection and better therapies.”

The instrument at the center of the project is a plastic chip about the size of a credit card, which Soper said can easily be replicated and mass-produced. The chip contains enzymes that break down a protein sample into amino acids. According to the release, each amino acid creates a unique electrical signal, which machine learning and artificial intelligence interpret in real time to decode the protein’s exact composition. Soper said this will help biologists and clinicians provide doctors with a better idea of the state of the disease and how to better manage it.

By showing exact differences in proteins, this instrument could help research and treatment for many diseases, the release said.

Soper, who spent two decades teaching at Louisiana State University, will serve as the project’s connector. The project is still in its early stages, but Soper’s team has already collected promising data, according to the release.

“I think the biggest compliment I have gotten on what we have accomplished is getting patients emailing us and saying, ‘Can this help us? What can we do to get involved in using this technology?'” Soper said. “That’s what keeps me going. Getting your technologies out into the marketplace so people can actually use them, that’s kind of the holy grail of working in the area of biomedical technology.”