Diamonds, which have been considered to be a girl’s best friend for long, may now turn out to be a patient’s best friend as well.

A Harvard University-based research team, including a physicist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), says that its research into the possibilities of developing quantum computers have led to a finding that may have more immediate application in medical science.

The team has found that a candidate "quantum bit" has great sensitivity to magnetic fields, which hints that MRI-like devices that can probe individual drug molecules and living cells may be possible.

The candidate system, formed from a nitrogen atom lodged within a diamond crystal, is promising not only because it can sense atomic-scale variations in magnetism, but also because it functions at room temperature.

Most other such devices used either in quantum computation or for magnetic sensing can operate only after they are cooled to nearly absolute zero, which makes it difficult to place them near live tissue.

He envisions diamond-tipped sensors performing magnetic resonance tests on individual cells within the body, or on single molecules drug companies want to investigate—a sort of MRI scanner for the microscopic.

"That’s commonly thought not to be possible because in both of these cases the magnetic fields are so small. But this technique has very low toxicity and can be done at room temperature. It could potentially look inside a single cell and allow us to visualize what’s happening in different spots," he says.