Medical and clinical diagnostics articles from across Nature Portfolio

The rapid identification of drug-resistant bacteria is vital for effective treatment and to avoid antibiotic misuse. Here authors report a paper-based sensor which utilises chromogenic carbapenem and cephalosporin substrates for the identification and discrimination of β-lactamase subtypes.

Gadolinium-based contrast agents are the gold standard for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), however, their poor stability causes safety problems in clinical applications. Here, the authors develop two chiral Gd(III) DOTA-based complexes with a macrocyclic backbone that show higher relaxivities and stabilities than benchmark complexes.

The tumour microenvironment has a specific enzymatic fingerprint, which provides opportunities for cancer therapy. Now, two studies show how this unique chemical environment can be used to produce reporter molecules or nanoclusters within the tumour that can subsequently be identified in urine or breath, enabling cancer detection and monitoring.

Understanding the mechanics of acute kidney injury from toxins, ischemia and sepsis remains challenging. Molecular probes with high renal clearance have now been developed for real-time optical detection of early-stage biomarkers of drug-induced acute kidney injury, and for the understanding of the mechanisms of injury.

Following binding kinetics over time rather than relying on differences in free-energy of binding enables detection of single molecules of mutant DNA with an estimated specificity of 99.99999%.

A holographic approach relying on small-molecule chromogens enables a rapid and inexpensive test for the accurate classification of aggressive lymphoma at the point of care.

Accurate diagnostics need technology — from imaging hardware and image reconstruction to machine learning — to detect markers associated with the cause of disease.