A new technology to diagnose illness the way a grocery store checkout scanner reads a bar code is being tested by Northwestern University researchers.A so-called bio bar code technology to spot anthrax is described in a report posted online Tuesday by the Journal of the American Chemical Society.A Northwestern University team led by Chad Mirkin, head of the school’s nanotechnology institute, used tiny particles of gold, DNA and magnetic material to construct a system that can isolate anthrax DNA from a single drop of blood.
