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UK Researchers Develop Clinical Laboratory Diagnostic Skin Test for Parkinson’s Inspired by Woman’s Ability to Smell the Disease before Onset of Symptoms

An assay using mass spectrometry could go to clinical trial within two years

Dark Daily has regularly observed that humans generate a variety of volatile substances—particularly in breath—which can be used for diagnostic purposes. But what if people, like certain trained animals, could smell the presence of disease before the onset of symptoms? What types of clinical laboratory testing biomarkers could be developed based on human-generated volatile organic compounds?

In “Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson’s Disease in Patients Even Before Symptoms Appear May Help Researchers Develop New Clinical Laboratory Test,” Dark Daily covered the unique story of Joy Milne, a retired nurse from Perth, Scotland, who claimed she could “smell” her husband’s Parkinson’s disease a decade before he was diagnosed with the illness.

As strange as that may sound, Milne’s olfactory abilities were confirmed by researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and have now led to a clinical laboratory diagnostic Parkinson’s test based on body odor.

Researchers at the University of Manchester (UM) in the United Kingdom (UK) say their “breakthrough” test to diagnose Parkinson’s disease “can diagnose disease from skin swabs in three minutes,” according to a university press release.

The researchers published their findings in JACS AU, a Journal of the American Chemical Society, titled, “Paper Spray Ionization Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry of Sebum Classifies Biomarker Classes for the Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.”

Perdita Barran, PhD and Joy Milne

Perdita Barran, PhD (right), head of the University of Manchester research team that developed the mass spectrometry Parkinson’s test, is shown above with Joy Milne (left), the retired nurse from Scotland who inspired Barran’s team to develop a new Parkinson’s biomarker and method for identifying it. “We are tremendously excited by these results which take us closer to making a diagnostic test for Parkinson’s Disease that could be used in clinic,” she said in a press release. A viable clinical laboratory test for Parkinson’s disease is greatly needed, as more than 10 million people worldwide currently live with the neurodegenerative disorder. (Photo copyright: University of Manchester.)

Using Mass Spectrometry to Analyze Sebum

The UM scientists hypothesized that the smell could be due to sebum, a light oily substance on skin that was going through a chemical change due to the Parkinson’s disease, Hull Daily Mail explained.

Increased sebum, which is produced by the sebaceous glands, is a hallmark of Parkinson’s, the researchers noted.

Their new method involves analysis of sebum using mass spectrometry, according to the JACS AU paper. The method, the researchers claim, makes it possible to diagnose Parkinson’s disease from skin swabs in three minutes.

“There are no cures for Parkinson’s, but a confirmatory diagnosis would allow [Parkinson’s patients] to get the right treatment and get the drugs that will help to alleviate their symptoms,” Perdita Barran, PhD, told the Hull Daily Mail. Barran is Chair of Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry and Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry at UM’s Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. “What we are now doing is seeing if (hospital laboratories) can do what we’ve done in a research lab in a hospital lab,” she added.

Sebum Analyzed with Mass Spectrometry

Parkinson’s disease—the world’s fastest growing neurodegenerative disorder—needs “robust biomarkers” that could advance detection and head off onset of motor symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, and postural instability, the researchers note in their paper.

Their recent study builds on earlier 2019 findings they published in ACS Central Science about volatile compounds in sebum possibly being used as Parkinson’s biomarkers.

“Sebum is an underexplored biofluid, which is readily obtained from non-invasive skin swabs, which primarily consists of a mixture of triglycerides, cholesterol, free fatty acids, waxy esters,  and squalene,” the researchers explained in their JACS AU paper. 

The scientists sought, “to develop a method to analyze sebum in its native state to facilitate rapid assessment of the Parkinson’s disease status. Paper spray ionization mass spectrometry, which allows the direct analysis of compounds from paper, has previously been demonstrated to detect small molecules from unprocessed biofluids, such as blood and urine, but not to date with sebum,” they wrote.

The UM researchers used mass spectrometry to analyze sebum collected on cotton swabs from the backs of 79 people with Parkinson’s and 71 healthy individuals, BBC Scotland News reported.

Depanjan Sarkar, PhD, Research Associate, University of Manchester, further explained the technique in the UM news release:

  • Sebum is taken from the swab to filter paper cut in a triangle.
  • Using a solvent and voltage, sebum compounds transfer into the mass spectrometer.

“When we did this, we found more than 4,000 unique compounds of which 500 are different between people with Parkinson’s compared to the control participants,” Sarkar said.

Fatty Acids Make Assay Possible

Could fatty acids pave the way to an assay? The UM researchers believe so.

“We have identified two classes of lipids, namely [triglycerides] and diglycerides, as components of human sebum that are significantly differentially expressed in PD,” the researchers wrote in JACS AU. “Non-invasive sampling followed by PS-IM-MS [paper spray-ion mobility–mass spectrometry] analysis targeting these compounds could provide an inexpensive assay to support clinical phenotyping for the confirmatory diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.”

A clinical trial for their test, which costs about $20, may be done within two years in Manchester area, the Daily Mail reported.

When Dark Daily reported in 2020 on Joy Milne’s unique ability to smell her husband’s Parkinson’s disease before it was formally diagnosed, we predicted a diagnostic test for Parkinson’s may be years away. And here it is, albeit with regulatory clearance needed following clinical trials.

It may in fact be possible to leverage sebum analysis to detect other diseases, the UM researchers noted.

For diagnostics developers, this story of Joy Milne and her husband Les Milne is a useful example of how, in tracking the life of a specific patient with a specific disease and close family members, researchers were able to identify a new class of biomarkers that could be used in a diagnostic assay.

It will be interesting to follow the University of Manchester researchers in their quest for a diagnostic mass spectrometry clinical laboratory test for Parkinson’s disease. According to Parkinson’s Foundation statistics, about 10 million people worldwide live with the neurodegenerative disorder. Such a new diagnostic test could be vitally important to medical laboratory care, and to patients and their families.

-Donna Marie Pocius

Related Information:

That’s Breathtaking; Meet the Woman Who Sniffed Out Her Husband’s Parkinson’s and Now Experts Have Created First Ever Test Based on Odor That Alerted Her

Parkinson’s Breakthrough Can Diagnose Disease from Skin Swabs in Three Minutes

Test for Parkinson’s is Developed Thanks to Woman Who Can Smell the Disease; It Has Been Years in the Making

Paper Spray Ionization Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry of Sebum Classifies Biomarker Classes for the Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease

Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from Sebum

Parkinson’s Test: Woman Who Smelled Disease on Husband Helps Scientists

Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson’s Disease in Patients Even Before Symptoms Appear May Help Researchers Develop New Clinical Laboratory Test

UCSD Scientists Discover a Person’s Skin Microbiome May Make Some Individuals More Attractive to Biting Insects than Others

Research could lead to clinical laboratory tests in service of precision medicine therapies to reduce a person’s susceptibility to being targeted by blood-sucking insects

Ever wonder why some people attract mosquitoes while others do not? Could biting insects pick their victims by smell? Scientists in California believe the answers to these questions could lead to new precision medicine therapies and clinical laboratory tests.

The research revealed evidence that some blood-sucking insects may identify their prey by homing in on the “scent” of chemicals produced by bacteria located in the skin microbiome of animals and humans.  

This is yet another example of research into one area of the human microbiome that might someday lead to a new clinical laboratory test, in this case to determine if a person is more likely to attracts biting insects. If there were such a test, precision medicine therapies could be developed that change an individual’s microbiome to discourage insects from biting that individual.

Then, the clinical laboratory test would have value because it helped diagnose a health condition that is treatable.

Researchers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography examined blood-sucking flies that are attracted to bats to learn how the insects choose which bats to feed on. One of the authors of the study, Holly Lutz, PhD, had previously encountered multitudes of bats while performing malaria research in bat caves in Kenya and Uganda.

Lutz is an Assistant Project Scientist, Department of Pediatrics, in the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the UCSD School of Medicine. She is also a Scientific Affiliate at the Field Museum of Natural History.

The researchers published their findings in the scientific journal Molecular Ecology, titled, “Associations Between Afrotropical Bats, Eukaryotic Parasites, and Microbial Symbionts.”

Holly Lutz, PhD

Curiosity regarding why mosquitoes seem to gravitate towards some humans over others was the original catalyst for the UCSD Medical School research. “You know when you go to a barbeque and your friend is getting bombarded by mosquitos, but you’re fine? There is some research to support the idea that the difference in mosquito attraction is linked to your skin microbiome—the unique community of bacteria living on your skin,” said Holly Lutz, PhD (above), first author of the UCSD study. “Keeping in mind that some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others, I wondered what makes insects attracted to some bats but not others.” Lutz’s research could lead to clinical laboratory tests that drive precision medicine therapies to alter human skin microbiomes and make people less attractive to biting insects. (Photo copyright: The Field Museum of Natural History.)

Biting Flies Prefer Specific Bats

“In these caves, I’d see all these different bat species or even taxonomic families roosting side by side. Some of them were loaded with bat flies, while others had none or only a few,” Lutz said in Phys.org. “And these flies are typically very specific to different kinds of bats—you won’t find a fly that normally feeds on horseshoe bats crawling around on a fruit bat. I started wondering why the flies are so particular. Clearly, they can crawl over from one kind of bat to another, but they don’t really seem to be doing that.”

The researchers suspected that the bacteria contained in the skin microbiomes of individual bats could be influencing which bats the flies selected to bite. The bacteria produce a distinctive odor which may make certain bats more attractive to the flies.

The type of fly assessed for the study are related to mosquitoes and most of them are incapable of flight.

“They have incredibly reduced wings in many cases and can’t actually fly,” Lutz explained. “And they have reduced eyesight, so they probably aren’t really operating by vision. So, some other sensory mechanisms must be at play, maybe a sense of smell or an ability to detect chemical cues.”

To test their hypothesis, the research team collected skin and fur samples from the bodies and wings of a variety of bat species located in various caves around Kenya and Uganda. They collected their samples at 14 field sites from August to October in 2016. They then examined the DNA of the bats as well as the microbes residing on the animals’ skin and searched for the presence of flies.

“The flies are exquisitely evolved to stay on their bat,” said Carl Dick, PhD, a professor of biology at Western Kentucky University and one of the study’s authors. “They have special combs, spines, and claws that hold them in place in the fur, and they can run quickly in any direction to evade the biting and scratching of the bats, or the efforts by researchers to capture them,” he told Phys.org.

“You brush the bats’ fur with your forceps, and it’s like you’re chasing the fastest little spider,” Lutz said. “The flies can disappear in a split second. They are fascinatingly creepy.”

Genetic Sequencing DNA of Bat Skin Bacteria

After collecting their specimens, the researchers extracted DNA from the collected bacteria and performed genetic sequencing on the samples. They created libraries of the bacteria contained in each skin sample and used bioinformatics methods to identify the bacteria and compare the samples from bats that had flies versus those that did not.

“How the flies actually locate and find their bats has previously been something of a mystery,” Dick noted. “But because most bat flies live and feed on only one bat species, it’s clear that they somehow find the right host.”

The scientists discovered that different bat families did have their own distinctive skin microbiome, even among samples collected from different locations. They found that differences in the skin microbiomes of certain bats does contribute to whether those bats have parasites. But not all their questions were answered.

“We weren’t able to collect the actual chemicals producing cue—secondary metabolites or volatile organic compounds—during this initial work. Without that information, we can’t definitively say that the bacteria are leading the flies to their hosts,” Lutz said.

Next Steps

“So, next steps will be to sample bats in a way that we can actually tie these compounds to the bacteria. In science, there is always a next step,” she added.

This research illustrates that there may be a reason why certain animals and humans tend to be more attractive to insects than others. It is also possible that an individual’s skin microbiome may explain why some people are more prone to mosquito and other types of insect bites.

More research and clinical studies on this topic are needed, but it could possibly lead to a clinical laboratory test to determine if an individual’s skin microbiome could contribute to his or her potential to being bitten by insects. Such a test would be quite beneficial, as insects can carry a variety of diseases that are harmful to humans.

Perhaps a precision medicine therapy could be developed to alter a person’s microbiome to make them invisible to blood-sucking insects. That would be a boon to regions of the world were diseases like malaria are spread by insect bites.

—JP Schlingman

Related Information:

Blood-sucking Flies May Be Following Chemicals Produced by Skin Bacteria to Locate Bats to Feed on

Associations Between Afrotropical Bats, Eukaryotic Parasites, and Microbial Symbionts

The Human Skin Microbiome

New Study Shows Dogs Can be Trained to Sniff Out Presence of Prostate Cancer in Urine Samples

Determining how dogs do this may lead to biomarkers for new clinical laboratory diagnostics tests

Development of new diagnostic olfactory tools for prostate and other cancers is expected to result from research now being conducted by a consortium of researchers at different universities and institutes. To identify new biomarkers, these scientists are studying how dogs can detect the presence of prostate cancer by sniffing urine specimens.

Funded by a grant from the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the pilot study demonstrated that dogs could identify prostate samples containing cancer and discern between cancer positive and cancer negative samples.

This is not the only research study to focus on the ability of dogs to detect cancer and other health conditions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, dogs were used to spot people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Dark Daily covered this in “German Scientists Train Dogs to Detect the Presence of COVID-19 in Saliva Samples; Can a Canine’s Nose Be as Accurate as Clinical Laboratory Testing?

The “end goal” of this latest pilot study is “to pave the way towards development of machine-based olfactory diagnostic tools that define and recapitulate what can be detected and accomplished now via canine olfaction,” according to a research paper published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, titled, “Feasibility of Integrating Canine Olfaction with Chemical and Microbial Profiling of Urine to Detect Lethal Prostate Cancer.”

Research institutions, hospitals, and laboratories that participated in the pilot study included:

Canine Olfactory Combined with Artificial Intelligence Analysis Approach

The part of a canine brain that controls smell is 40 million times greater than that of humans. Some dog breeds have 300 to 350 million sensory receptors, compared to about five million in humans. With their keen sense of smell, dogs are proving to be vital resources in the detection of some diseases.

The pilot study examined how dogs could be trained to detect prostate cancer in human urine samples.

Claire Guest, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Medical Detection Dogs

Claire Guest, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of UK-based Medical Detection Dogs and one of the study authors, is shown above with one of her cancer detecting dogs. In a Prostate Cancer Foundation article, she said, “Prostate cancer is not going to turn out to be a single note. What dogs are really good at discovering is a tune. Think of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, those first few notes. We suspect the cancer signature is something like that. It’s a pattern; the dogs are really good at recognizing the pattern. Machines that recognize the notes but can’t read the pattern are not reliable biomarkers,” she noted. The researchers believe the best solution for developing a clinical laboratory diagnostic that detects prostate cancer may be a combined approach using canine olfaction and AI neural networks. (Photo copyright: Janine Warwick/NPR.)

To perform the study, the researchers trained two dogs to sniff urine samples from men with high-grade prostate cancer and from men without the cancer. The two dogs used in the study were a four-year-old female Labrador Retriever named Florin, and a seven-year-old female wirehaired Hungarian Vizsla named Midas. The dogs were trained to respond to cancer-related chemicals, known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, the researchers added to the urine samples, and to not respond to the samples without the VOCs.

Both dogs performed well in their cancer detection roles, and both successfully identified five of seven urine samples from men with prostate cancer, correlating to a 71.4% accuracy rate. In addition, Florin correctly identified 16 of 21 non-aggressive or no cancer samples for an accuracy rate of 76.2% and Midas did the same with a 66.7% accuracy rate.

The researchers also applied gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis of volatile compounds and microbial species found in urine.

“We wondered if having the dogs detect the chemicals, combined with analysis by GC-MS, bacterial profiling, and an artificial intelligence (AI) neural network trained to emulate the canine cancer detection ability, could significantly improve the diagnosis of high-grade prostate cancer,” said Alan Partin, MD, PhD, Professor of Urology, Pathology and Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and one of the authors of the study, told Futurity.

The researchers determined that canine olfaction was able to distinguish between positive and negative prostate cancer in the samples, and the VOC and microbiota profiling analyses showed a qualitative difference between the two groups. The multisystem approach demonstrated a more sensitive and specific way of detecting the presence of prostate cancer than any of the methods used by themselves.

In their paper, the researchers concluded that “this study demonstrated feasibility and identified the challenges of a multiparametric approach as a first step towards creating a more effective, non-invasive early urine diagnostic method for the highly aggressive histology of prostate cancer.”

Can Man’s Best Friend be Trained to Detect Cancer and Save Lives?

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the developed world. And, according to data from the National Cancer Institute, standard clinical laboratory blood tests, such as the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test for early detection, sometimes miss the presence of cancer.

Establishing an accurate, non-invasive method of sensing the disease could help detect the disease sooner when it is more treatable and save lives.

The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be about 248,530 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in 2021 and that there will be approximately 34,130 deaths resulting from the disease during the same year.

Of course, more testing will be needed before Man’s best friend can be put to work detecting cancer in medical environments. But if canines can be trained to detect the disease early, and in a non-invasive way, more timely diagnosis and treatment could result in higher survival rates.

Meanwhile, as researchers identify the elements dogs use to detect cancer and other diseases, this knowledge can result in the creation of new biomarkers than can be used in clinical laboratory tests.

JP Schlingman

Related Information:

Feasibility of Integrating Canine Olfaction with Chemical and Microbial Profiling of Urine to Detect Lethal Prostate Cancer

German Scientists Train Dogs to Detect the Presence of COVID-19 in Saliva Samples; Can a Canine’s Nose Be as Accurate as Clinical Laboratory Testing?

Olfactory Sensations! Meet the Dogs Leading the Revolution in Prostate Cancer Detection (Part 1)

Olfactory Sensations Smell Like Cancer (Part 2)

Prostate Cancer-Detecting Dogs’ Olfactory Capacity Trains Neural Network for Combination Diagnostic Approach

Dogs Sniff Pee for Signs of Prostate Cancer

Thailand Researchers Train Labrador Retrievers to Detect COVID-19 in Human Sweat

University of East Anglia Researchers Develop Non-Invasive Prostate Cancer Urine Test

GlaxoSmithKline to Use a ‘Breath Biopsy’ Test by Owlstone Medical in a Phase II Clinical Trial of a Respiratory Drug

It has been regularly demonstrated in recent decades that human breath contains elements that could be incorporated into clinical laboratory tests, so the decision to use this “breath biopsy” test in a therapeutic drug trial will be closely watched

When a major pharma company pays attention to a breath test, implications for clinical laboratories are often forthcoming. Such may be the case with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The global healthcare company has selected Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy technology for use in its Phase II clinical trial of danirixin (DNX), a respiratory drug under development by GSK for treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an Owlstone Medical news release announced.

Anatomic pathologists and medical laboratory leaders will be intrigued by GSK’s integration of breath-based specimens in a clinical trial of a respiratory drug. The partners in the trial aim to analyze breath samples to better understand the drug’s treatment effects and to discover personalized medicine (AKA, precision medicine) opportunities.

GSK (NYSE:GSK), headquartered in the UK but with a large presence in the US, researches and develops pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and other consumer health products.

Owlstone Medical, a diagnostic company, is developing a breathalyzer for disease and says it is on a mission to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs. Dark Daily previously reported on Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy platform. The Cambridge, England-based company has raised significant funding ($23.5 million) and already garnered credible cancer trial collaborators including the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

Now, Owlstone Medical has brought its breath analysis technology to bear on chronic disease outside of cancer diagnostics development. A pharmaporum article called Owlstone’s Medical’s work with GSK an “additional boost of confidence” in the company’s technology, as well as a means for revenue.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Owlstone Medical (above), shown with the company’s ReCIVA Breath Sampler device. This will be used by GSK in its Phase II respiratory disease clinical trial of danirixin to “capture VOC biomarkers in breath samples.” (Photo copyright: Business Weekly UK.)

GSK Studying Future Treatments for Respiratory Diseases

COPD affects about 700 million people worldwide, an increase of about 65% since 1990, GSK pointed out. In September 2017, GSK presented respiratory disease data and its pipeline medications at the European Respiratory Society in Milan, Italy. Included was information on danirixin (an oral CXCR2 antagonist), which is part of the company’s focus on COPD disease modification, according to a GSK news release.

“Each of our studies sets the bar for our future research and innovation,” noted Neil Barnes, MA Cantab, FRCP, FCCP(Hon), Vice President, Global Franchise Medical Head, GSK Respiratory, in the GSK press release.

Clinical Trial Aimed at Identifying the ‘Right’ Patients

With Owlstone Medical’s breathalyzer, GSK plans to explore how volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can help identify patients who will benefit most from the company’s medications, as well as evaluate Danirixin’s effects. A critical element of personalized medicine.

“It’s part of our efforts to identify the right patient for the right treatment,” said Ruth Tal-Singer, PhD, GSK’s Vice President of Medicine Development Leader and Senior Fellow, Respiratory Research and Development, in the Owlstone Medical news release.

VOCs in breath will be captured in a non-invasive way from patients who wear Owlstone Medical’s ReCIVA Breath Sampler, which, according to Owlstone Medical, has CE-mark clearance, a certification noting conformity with European health and safety standards. The VOCs breath samples will then be sent to Owlstone Medical’s lab for high-sensitivity analysis.

“Non-invasive Breath Biopsy can establish a role in precision medicine applications such as patient stratification and monitoring treatment response,” said Billy Boyle, Owlstone Medical’s co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

 VOC Biomarkers in Respiratory Disease

VOC profiles can be characteristic of COPD as well as other respiratory diseases including asthma, tuberculosis, and cystic fibrosis, reported Science/Business.

According to Owlstone Medical’s Website, VOCs are gaseous molecules produced by the human body’s metabolism that are suitable for Breath Biopsy. Their research suggests that exhaled breath reflects molecular processes responsible for chronic inflammation. Thus, VOCs captured through Breath Biopsy offer insight into respiratory disease biomarkers.

Breath also includes VOCs that originate from circulation, which can provide information on a patient’s response to medications.

How the Breath Biopsy Platform Works

Owlstone Medical’s platform relies on its patented Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) technology, which “has the ability to rapidly monitor a broad range of VOC biomarkers from breath, urine and other bodily fluids with high sensitivity and selectivity,” according to the company’s website. During the process:

  • Gases are exchanged between circulating blood and inhaled fresh air in the lungs;
  • VOC biomarkers pass from the circulation system into the lungs along with oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases;
  • Exhaled breath contains exiting biomarkers.

It takes about a minute for blood to flow around the body. So, a breath sample during that time makes possible collection and analysis of VOC biomarkers from any part of the body touched by the circulatory system.

The medical analysis is enabled by software in the Owlstone Medical lab, Boyle told the Cambridge Independent.

“There’s an analogy with blood prints—you get the blood and can look for different diseases, and we’ve developed core hardware and technology to analyze the breath sample,” he said.

Another Breath Sample Device 

The ReCIVA Breath Sampler is not the only breathalyzer focused on multiple diseases.  Dark Daily reported on research conducted by Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology, into a breath analyzer that can detect up to 17 cancers, and inflammatory and neurological diseases.

But Owlstone Medical stands out due, in part, to its noteworthy partners: the UK’s National Health Service, as well as the:

And now the company can add collaboration with GSK to its progress. Though some question the reliability of breath tests as biomarkers in the areas of sensitivity and specificity required for cancer diagnosis, Owlstone Medical appears to have the wherewithal to handle those hurdles. It is a diagnostics company that many pathologists and medical laboratory professionals may find worth watching.

—Donna Marie Pocius

Related Information:

Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy Platform Integrated into GSK’s Phase II Respiratory Disease Clinical Trial

GSK Utilizes Owlstone Disease Breathalyser for Key Clinical Trials

GSK Presents Respiratory Data from Pipeline to Clinical Practice at ERS

GSK Boosts Medtech First Owlstone with Use of Breath Biopsy in Respiratory Trial

Glaxo to Stratify COPD Trial Using Breath Biopsy Device

Billy Boyle of Owlstone Medical on the Inspiration Behind His Mission to Save 100,000 From Dying of Cancer

Owlstone Medical and UK’s NHS Study Whether Breath Contains Useful Biomarkers

Breath Based Biomarker Detection: Informing Drug Development and Future Treatment Regimes

Clinical Laboratories Could Soon Diagnose 17 Diseases with a Single Breath Analyzer Test from Israel’s Institute of Technology

Clinical Laboratories Could Soon Diagnose 17 Diseases with a Single Breath Analyzer Test from Israel’s Institute of Technology

The Technion breathalyzer would give pathology groups and medical laboratories unprecedented ability to support physicians in diagnosing and treating cancers, chronic diseases, and other illnesses

Readers of Dark Daily know that several pathology research teams in America and the UK are developing breath analyzer tests that can detect everything from lung cancer to early-stage infections. Clinical laboratories will soon have a plethora of breath-related tests from which to choose. Now there’s a new kid on the block. A breathalyzer test that can detect up to 17 distinct cancerous, inflammatory, and neurological diseases!

Assuming the cost per test was at a competitive level to existing technologies, what would give this new diagnostic system appeal to physicians and patients alike is that it would be a non-invasive way to diagnose disease. Only a sample of the patient’s breath would be needed to perform the assays.

Researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, published the results of their study in ACS Nano, a monthly journal of the American Chemical Society devoted to “nanoscience and nanotechnology research at the interfaces of chemistry, biology, materials science, physics, and engineering.” (more…)

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