MEANS AND METHOD FOR USING PARAMAGNETIC MATERIALS FOR IN VITRO DIAGNOSTIC APPLICATIONS

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for detecting at least one property which is correlated with the occurrence of a target biochemical molecular species or a biochemical molecular species in a sample of which the main component is water.SOLUTION: A method of this invention comprises steps of: (a) obtaining a sample of which the main component is water; (b) preparing functionalized paramagnetic particles (FPP) comprising a paramagnetic core and a component which is composed to interact with target biochemical molecular species, or with molecules which collectively report properties of the target biochemical molecular species; (c) contacting the FPP with the sample; (d) exposing the sample to an applied magnetic field; (e) measuring a change in a nuclear relaxation property of the sample generated by the interaction of the FPP with the target biochemical molecular species, or with the molecules which collectively report the properties of the target biochemical molecular species or the target biochemical molecular species, in an applied magnetic field; and (f) correlating the change with at least one property having a correlation with the presence of the biochemical molecular species in the sample or the occurrence of the biochemical molecular species in the sample.