A watch-sized device can scan sweat and detect signs of an impending and deadly cytokine storm caused by Covid-19 and other infections.
The phenomenon occurs when bloodstream chemicals, called cytokines, multiply rapidly and become out of control.
These small chemicals are designed to restrict and control the immune system and, when twisted, can cause inflammation and damage to organs.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors recognized that patients who developed a “cytokine storm” were often the sickest and most at risk of dying.
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A watch-sized device can scan sweat and detect signs of an impending and deadly cytokine storm caused by Covid-19 and other infections.
A cytokine storm occurs when the body’s cytokines sink through the bloodstream, causing the creation of other immune cells, causing damage to organs.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas made sensory strips with antibodies against seven proinflammatory proteins and tested them on six healthy people and five people with the flu, another virus that can cause a cytokine storm.
Two of the sick people showed high levels of cytokines, while all participants had cytokines in sweat that corresponded to the expected values based on previous research.
An early warning system would allow doctors to administer steroids quickly, reducing the risk of the cytokine storm getting out of control, ”the researchers said.
“Especially now in the context of COVID-19, if you could control proinflammatory cytokines and see them on the rise, you could treat patients early, even before they show symptoms,” the author said. from the Shalini Prasad studio.
Early detection is important because once a storm of cytokines is triggered, excessive inflammation can damage organs, causing serious illness and death.
Conversely, if doctors could administer steroid or other therapies as soon as cytokine levels began to rise, hospitalizations and deaths could be reduced.
Although blood tests can measure cytokines, they are difficult to perform at home and cannot continuously monitor protein levels.
Cytokines are excreted in sweat at lower levels than in the blood.
To collect enough sweat for testing, scientists have asked patients to exercise or applied a small electric current to patients ’skin.
However, these procedures can alter cytokine levels, according to Prasad.
“When it comes to cytokines, we’ve found that they need to be measured with passive sweat,” the lead researcher said.
“But the big challenge is that we don’t sweat a lot, especially in air-conditioned environments,” he says.
The team estimates that most people produce only about 5 microliters, or a tenth of a drop, of passive sweat in a 0.5-inch square in 10 minutes.
Thus, the researchers wanted to develop an extremely sensitive method for measuring cytokine levels in small amounts of passive sweat.
They relied on their previous work on a sweat sensor usable to monitor markers of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The wristwatch-like device measures the levels of two proteins that increase during MII outbreaks, and when carried on the arm, passive sweat spreads into a strip of sensors.
Early detection is important because once a cytokine storm is triggered, excessive inflammation can damage organs, causing serious illness and death, according to study author Shalini Prasad (pictured)
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas made sensory strips with antibodies against seven proinflammatory proteins and tested them on six healthy people and five people with the flu, another virus that can cause a cytokine storm.
The sensor, which contains two electrodes, is coated with antibodies that bind to the two proteins, a process that changes the electric current going to the reader.
The reader then transfers the data wirelessly to a smartphone app that converts electrical measurements into protein concentrations.
After a few minutes, the old sweat spreads and the newly excreted sweat enters the strip to analyze it.
For their new cytokine sensor, known as SWEATSENSER Dx, the researchers made sensory strips with antibodies against seven proinflammatory proteins.
The SWEATSENSER Dx was sensitive enough to measure cytokines in patients taking anti-inflammatory drugs, which excrete far fewer chemicals.
The device tracked cytokine levels up to 168 hours before replacing the sensor strip.
EnLiSense, in collaboration with researchers, is now planning cytokine sensor clinical trials in people with respiratory infections.
“Access to COVID-19 patients has been a challenge because healthcare workers are overwhelmed and don’t have time to test research devices,” says Prasad.
“But we will continue to test it to detect all respiratory infections, because the disease itself doesn’t matter; that’s what’s happening with the cytokines we’re interested in controlling.”
The findings are presented at the ACS Spring 2021 meeting.