A new ultra-sensitive test has been designed to detect diseases including HIV and cancer, it may prove 10,000 times more effective than current diagnostic tools, say Stanford scientists. When a disease - whether it is a cancer or a virus like HIV - begins growing in the body, the immune system responds by producing antibodies. Fishing these antibodies or related biomarkers out of the blood is one way that scientists infer the presence of a disease. This involves designing a molecule that the biomarker will bind to, and which is adorned with an identifying “flag.”

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