The MIT research team has developed a small sensor that can detect sepsis through very small blood samples and simple tests. In the future, this technology is expected to be applicable to various diseases in which blood biomarkers appear, not sepsis.
Sepsis is an organ damage caused by infection, and symptoms rapidly worsen between tens of minutes and several hours depending on the patient’s physical strength. In severe cases, the mortality rate is quite high, a quarter. In the United States, 250,000 people die annually from sepsis.
Since sepsis progresses rapidly and symptomatic, rapid diagnosis and treatment are required. However, in the field, the patient’s body temperature, breathing, and pulse frequency are the main basis for judgment, and in the early stages, it is difficult to distinguish it from other diseases accompanied by fever and shortness of breath.
Of course, a detailed test method using blood is also being developed. When sepsis occurs, it is known that a protein called blood interleukin-6 is released, and it has been attracting attention as an effective biomarker for diagnosing sepsis from the beginning of its discovery.
However, the blood level of interleukin-6, which is the criterion for sepsis, is very low at 16 picograms per ml. Therefore, until now, it was only possible to detect it by using huge and expensive inspection equipment. In the midst of this, the MIT research team succeeded in creating an analysis device measuring only a few centimeters by applying microfluidics.
This biosensor uses micron-sized beads coated with an antibody reacting to interleukin-6 on a magnetic ring and cytochrome-c peroxidase. The bead attaches to a stationary electrode in response to interleukin-6 in the blood that fills the device. Then, by measuring a small current generated by the reaction of cytochrome c peroxidase to the service of this device, the concentration of interleukin-6 can be determined.
This biosensor has a short test time of 25 minutes and requires only 5 microliters of blood. A sample can be taken by only a small needle in a finger. In addition, the biggest feature of this analysis device is that it can be applied to living bodies in addition to interleukin-6. The research team is already planning to apply it to biomarkers for sepsis, such as interleukin-8 or procalcitonin.
The research team emphasized that it can be said that it is a universal platform for the biosensor developed this time, and that by physically increasing the device channel, the number of biomarkers that can be detected can be unlimitedly increased, thus responding to all biomarkers of all diseases. It is explained that in the future, other diseases besides sepsis will be easily tested. Related information can be found here .