Nanoparticles, shown in blue, can detect a certain form of plant virus (in pink), and distinguish it from other types.

Science News has a blurb about using nanoparticles to detect viruses.:

Current methods to identify viruses do so using natural molecules such as antibodies, which can be expensive and unstable. Synthetic nanomaterials could be more stable and cheaper if they can be designed to recognize and bind viruses as effectively as antibodies do.

Patrick Shahgaldian at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland and colleagues bound several turnip yellow mosaic viruses — plant viruses with a common shape — to the surface of silica nanoparticles. Then the team grew a layer of organosilanes — molecules containing carbon-silicon bonds — that surrounded the viruses.

After the researchers detached the viruses, the organosilane layer had imprints that not only matched the viruses’ shape but also were able to recognize them chemically. The nanoparticles successfully bound the template viruses while largely ignoring another similarly shaped one.

The original research appears in Nature Communications.