New, More Sensitive Sensor For Evaluating Drug Safety, Penn State University Reveals

A new technique for evaluating drug safety can detect stress on cells at earlier stages than conventional methods, which mostly rely on detecting cell death. The new method uses a fluorescent sensor that is turned on in a cell when misfolded proteins begin to aggregate -- an early sign of cellular stress. The method can be adapted to detect protein aggregates caused by other toxins, as well as diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. A paper describing the new method, by a team of researchers at Penn State University, appears in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.