A sensitive method for measuring and identifying minuscule amounts of a drug in the blood is known as radioimmunoassay (RIA). Antibodies are combined with a material that possesses radioactive qualities, such as an isotope, and delivered into the blood sample. The radioactive elements become free when the substances that do contain radioactive elements in the blood replace the isotopes present. Yalow and Berson are the individuals that created the first radioisotopic technique to look into the metabolism of iodine and blood volume. Later on, they adopted a technique that helps in finding out the manner in which the body makes use of hormones such as insulin which keeps the blood sugar levels in the body in check.
Discovery of Type 2 Diabetes Trigger and RIA Sensitivity
Furthermore, the researchers discovered that Type two diabetes is triggered by the inadequate use of insulin. They negated the previous presumption that it was the lack of insulin that caused diabetes. In 1959, the two researchers Yalow and Berson made an improvement in the technique if measurement and called radioimmunoassay (RIA) (Tricker 147). They only concluded that the use of RIA is very sensitive. Their discovery further revealed that it could detect a trillionth of one gram of material in one milliliter of blood. Therefore, due to the minute samples needed for measurement, RIA then became a standard tool for use in the laboratory.
How Radioimmunoassay Works
Insulin is a good example to illustrate how the technique of RIA works. The first step in measuring insulin is mixing the measured amounts radioisotopes with tagged insulin and antibodies. The next step is the automatic chemical combination of reagents. After the combination, the next step is the addition of the patient's blood in small amounts (Rinder & J 375). The insulin that was present in the blood dislocates some of the insulin that was tagged. Finally, the free-tagged insulin undergoes measurement by isotope detectors and what follows is the calculation of the levels of insulin of in the blood of the patient (Vittek et al., 711).
Radioimmunoassay Applications
The high prospects of RIA give it many applications, such as the use in the detection of narcotics, screening of the blood bank for infectious hepatitis, early detection of cancer, measuring the levels of growth hormones, and keeping track of the leukemia virus. Moreover, it is also used to treat peptic cancer and the research for brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters (Petrusz et al., 1110).
The Future of RIA
The use of RIA has many uses, some of which have been applied but their use remains for the present and the future. Among the many ailments that the technique cures, not all of them have received the adequate intervention. Therefore, it is true to conclude that the use of RAS has many more applications both at the domestic and commercial level. The use of RAS will continue to increase because the complexity of the mentioned ailments continues to worsen as time goes by.
Works Cited
Petrusz, P., et al. “Specificity in immunocytochemical staining.” Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry 24.10 (1976): 1110-1112.
Rinder, D. F., and J. R. Fleeker. “A radioimmunoassay to screen for 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2, 4, 5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid in surface water.” Bulletin of environmental contamination and toxicology 26.1 (1981): 375-380.
Tricker, Anthony R. “Biomarkers derived from nicotine and its metabolites: a review.” Beiträge zur Tabakforschung/Contributions to Tobacco Research 22.3 (2014): 147-175.
Vittek, Jozef, et al. “Direct radioimmunoassay (RIA) of salivary testosterone: correlation with free and total serum testosterone.” Life Sciences 37.8 (1985): 711-716.
