Synthetic firefly glow lights new path to disease detection

A Curtin University-led research team has found a way to synthetically create a firefly's 'glow' that could have positive impacts on the access to medical light-imaging tools used to detect tumours and other diseases. Fireflies emit their 'glow' due to a natural chemical reaction that happens in their abdomens in the presence of an enzyme called luciferase. The research team, through electrochemistry was able to trigger this same reaction without the enzyme, thereby artificially creating the same 'glow'. Lead researcher, Associate Professor Simone Ciampi, from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences said the breakthrough could increase use of this bioluminescent reaction, and reduce the costs of light bioluminescence imaging, which can be used to monitor diseases that lead to altered oxygen metabolism, such as cancer. "Bioluminescence imaging that mimics the firefly's glow is widely used in scientific research for mapping diseases, such as cancer, in animal tissues. A glow will indicate where oxygen metabolism is altered by the diseased cells," Associate Professor Ciampi said. "Currently thousands of fireflies are needed to extract small amounts of the enzyme - called luciferase -making firefly's bioluminescence imaging very expensive and limiting its diagnostic uses to animals.