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Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

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Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

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An Unlikely Pandemic Pairing: Facemasks Embedded with Ostrich Antibodies That Detect COVID-19 under UV Light

Japanese scientists who developed the detection method hope to use it to create ‘easy testing kits that anyone can use’

What do ostriches and humans have in common during the current COVID-19 pandemic? The unexpected answer is that ostrich antibodies can be used to identify humans infected with COVID-19. If proven viable in healthcare settings, the possibility exists that new clinical laboratory tests could be developed based on wearable diagnostics technologies that pathologists would interpret for doctors and patients.

This insight was the result of research conducted at Japan’s Kyoto Prefectural University. The KPU scientists found that a paper facemask coated with ostrich antibodies will give off a fluorescence in the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus under ultraviolet (UV) light.

Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, PhD

According to Study Finds, scientists at Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan have created a removable mask filter that, when sprayed with a fluorescent dye coated with antibodies extracted from ostrich eggs, will glow under UV light when COVID-19 is detected. The discovery by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, PhD (above), President of Kyoto Prefectural University, and his researchers could lead to development of low-cost at home COVID-19 testing kits using the same ostrich-antibody-based technique. (Photo copyright: Kyoto Prefectural University/Reuters.)

The KPU scientists conducted a small study with 32 COVID-19 patients over a 10-day span. The surgical-style masks they wore later glowed around the nose and mouth areas but became dimmer over time as their viral load decreased.

“The ostrich antibody for corona placed on the mouth filter of the mask captures the coronavirus in coughing, sneezing, and water,” the researchers explained in Study Finds.

Tsukamoto himself learned he had contracted COVID-19 after wearing a prototype mask and noticing it glowed under UV light. A PCR test later confirmed his diagnosis, Kyodo News reported.

The KPU team “hopes to further develop the masks so they will glow automatically, without special lighting, if the [COVID-19] virus is detected.” Reuters noted in its coverage of the ostrich-antibody masks.

Making Medicine from Ostrich Antibodies

A profile in Audubon noted that Tsukamoto, who also serves as a veterinary medicine professor at Kyoto Prefectural University, made ostriches the focus of his research since the 1990s as he looked for ways to harness the dinosaur-like bird’s properties to fight human infections. He maintains a flock of 500 captive ostriches. Each female ostrich can produce 50 to 100 eggs/year over a 50-year life span.

Tsukamoto’s research focuses on customizing the antibodies in ostrich eggs by injecting females with inactive viruses, allergens, and bacteria, and then extracting the antibodies to develop medicines for humans. Antibodies form in the egg yolks in about six weeks and can be collected without harming the parent or young.

“The idea of using ostrich antibodies for therapeutics in general is a very interesting concept, particularly because of the advantages of producing the antibodies from eggs,” Ashley St. John, PhD, an Associate Professor in Immunology, at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, told Audubon.

While more clinical studies will be needed before ostrich-antibody masks reach the commercial marketplace, Tsukamoto’s team is planning to expand their experiment to 150 participants with a goal of receiving Japanese government approval to begin selling the glowing COVID-detection masks as early as 2022. But they believe the ostrich-antibody technique ultimately may lead to development of an inexpensive COVID-19 testing kit.

“We can mass-produce antibodies from ostriches at a low cost. In the future, I want to make this into an easy testing kit that anyone can use,” Tsukamoto told Kyodo News.

Harvard, MIT Also Working on COVID-19 Detecting Facemask

Not to be out done, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University are participating in a similar effort to create a facemask capable of detecting COVID-19.

According to Fast Company, the MIT/Harvard COVID-19-detecting masks use the same core technology as previous paper tests for Ebola and Zika that utilize proteins and nucleic acids embedded in paper that react to target molecules.

New facemask

Fast Company explained that the mask wearer launches a test by pushing a button to release a small water reservoir embedded in the mask (above). Droplets from their breath are than analyzed by the sensors in the masks, which could be adapted to test for new COVID variants or other respiratory pathogens. In addition to eliminating the use of a nasal swab, the mask-based testing system may compete with clinical laboratory-based results. (Photo copyright: Felice Frankel/MIT.)

“Our system just allows you to add on laboratory-grade diagnostics to your normal mask wearing,” Peter Q. Nguyen, PhD, lead author of a study published in Nature Biotechnology, titled, “Wearable Materials with Embedded Synthetic Biology Sensors for Biomolecule Detection.” Nguyen is a research scientist at the Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard.

“They would especially be useful in situations where local variant outbreaks are occurring, allowing people to conveniently test themselves at home multiple times a day,” he told Fast Company.

“It’s on par specificity and sensitivity that you will get in a state-of-the-art [medical] laboratory, but with no one there,” Luis Ruben Soenksen, PhD, Venture Builder in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at MIT and one of the co-authors of the Nature Biotechnology study, told Fast Company.

Wearable Diagnostics

This isn’t the first-time unlikely sources have led to useful diagnostic information. In “Researchers in Japan Have Developed a ‘Smart’ Diaper Equipped with a Self-powered Biosensor That Can Monitor Blood Glucose Levels in Adults,” Dark Daily reported on another Japanese research team that developed self-powered wearable biosensors in undergarments that could detect blood glucose levels in individuals with diabetes as well as “smart diapers” that detect urine changes in babies.

As the definition of “wearable diagnostic technology” broadens, pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists may see their roles expand to include helping consumers interpret data collected by point-of-care testing technology as well as performing, evaluating, and interpreting laboratory test results that come from non-traditional sources. 

Andrea Downing Peck

Related Information:

Wearable Materials with Embedded Synthetic Biology Sensors for Biomolecule Detection

Face Mask Made with Ostrich Extract Detects COVID-19 by Glowing Under UV Light

How the Biggest Birds on Earth Could Help Fend Off Epidemics

Scientists Use Ostrich Cells to Make Glowing COVID Detection Masks

Japan Researchers Use Ostrich Cells to Make Glowing COVID-19 Detection Masks

This Mask Glows If You Have COVID

This New Face Mask Tests You for COVID while Protecting You from It

Researchers in Japan Have Developed a ‘Smart’ Diaper Equipped with a Self-powered Biosensor That Can Monitor Blood Glucose Levels in Adults

Investors Commit $172 Million for Development of Ingestible Data Devices to Monitor Effectiveness of Therapeutic Drugs In Vivo

With other companies also advancing ingestible and wearable technology, these new sources of useful diagnostic information may soon become available to pathologists and medical lab professionals

Ingestible sensors are now in the marketplace! These devices are designed to be swallowed by the patient. The device will then send the patient’s vital health data to a smartphone. No imagination is needed by pathologists to understand how such devices could generate diagnostic data in real time that could supplement traditional medical laboratory tests.

These ingestible sensors are designed with the goal of helping track both the adherence of patients to their prescription drug regimens and the effectiveness of these prescription drugs.

Proteus Digital Heath of Redwood City, California, is one company that has introduced an ingestible sensor that sends a person’s vital health data to a smartphone, reported Smart Planet in a story it recently published. (more…)

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