Students and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed an easier, cheaper and more efficient way to diagnose asthma, according to university news release.
UW-Madison biomedical engineering professor David Beebe and his team discovered that even mild cases of asthma can be diagnosed using a single drop of a patient’s blood, as described in their paper titled “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” published April 7.
By utilizing a correlation between asthmatic patients and neutrophils, the most abundant white blood cells in the body, the new method allows individuals to be diagnosed even if they do not exhibit symptoms during their clinic visit.
Neutrophils are the first cells to move in the direction of a site of inflammation to help heal wounds.
"Neutrophils are sort of like a dog tracking something,” Beebe said in the release. They sense a chemical gradient, like an odor, in the body."
By tracking the speed at which neutrophils migrate to inflamed areas, researchers can differentiate regular cells from the significantly slower asthmatic cells.
UW-Madison students developed the Kit-On-A-Lid-Assay microfluidic technology, which allows researchers to induce neutrophil migration by combining a drop of blood with a chemical mixture and recording the velocity at which it occurs. The kit is plastic and rather inexpensive.
"The KOALA platform represents the next-generation biomedical research kit," Beebe said in the release.
Most current methods of asthma diagnosis are contingent at least partially on symptom manifestation during a doctor’s visit. Additionally, they require patient cooperation, which makes it difficult to diagnose very young and very old individuals, according to the release.
