COVID-19 Has Crystallized the Need for Effective Diagnostics at the Point-of-Need
COVID-19 Has Crystallized the Need for Effective Diagnostics at the Point-of-Need
COVID-19 Has Crystallized the Need for Effective Diagnostics at the Point-of-Need
COVID-19 Has Crystallized the Need for Effective Diagnostics at the Point-of-Need
COVID-19 Has Crystallized the Need for Effective Diagnostics at the Point-of-Need
A Novel Point-of-Care Testing Platform
Enabled by Q-SENS & Powered by AI
At-Home Monitoring of
Chronic Inflammation
Why monitor inflammation?
Our immune system holds the most comprehensive and accurate picture of our health at any given time. Inflammation is the manifestation of our immune system response to all harmful stimuli. Therefore, monitoring inflammation by quantifying multiple known inflammation biomarkers can provide a scientific measure of a person’s health and well-being. Still, interpreting inflammation is a complicated task. There are multiple inflammation pathways, each involving several stages, multiple immune-system cell types, and thus hundreds of different biomarkers (i.e., Cytokines).
Source: Meeting Report. Nature Immunology, Vol.18, #11 November 2017
...But No One is Listening
Our Immune-System is Talking to Us
Acute vs. Chronic Inflammation
Acute inflammation is short lived and is a positive, protective, healing and renewing mechanism
Chronic inflammation is not a friend to the body nor is it short lived. It is a sign that things are getting out of control and instead of attacking “invaders” the body is attacking itself
Monitoring Critical Immune-System Pathways
Cytokines are critical mediators that oversee and regulate immune and inflammatory responses via complex networks and serve as biomarkers for many diseases. Quantification of cytokines has significant value in both clinical medicine and biology as their levels provide insights into physiological and pathological processes and can be used to aid diagnosis and treatment. They participate in the immune response and act as important mediators associated with the communication network of the immune system. Cytokines are responsible for the dynamic regulation of the maturation, growth and responsiveness of immune cells, and are important determinants of health.
Variation in cytokines levels in various biological fluids such as serum, blood, saliva, and sweat, provides valuable information regarding the diagnosis, stage, and prognosis of various diseases.
Accurate quantification of cytokines offers valuable information in the clinical context to monitor the immune status of patients and for adjusting therapies in different diseases.
22 Cytokine Involved in Critical Disease Promoting Pathways
Source: Cytokines: From Clinical Significance to Quantification, Advanced Science Adv. Sci. 2021, 8, 2004433 (Apr. 2021)
The level of these Cytokines in the bloodstream depends on many factors including, the size of the affected area, the severity of the immune-system reaction, personal illnesses (e.g., autoimmunity), and many other personal and environmental factors. Therefore, attempting to come up with a universal health index calculated by some sophisticated algorithm is destined to fail. Instead, we need to monitor peoples' state of inflammation and generate a personalized baseline to which we can compare future changes. Establishing such a personalized, individual baseline is a crucial step toward the long-anticipated revolution of personalized, data-based medicine.
The Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged as powerful tools for analyzing large amounts of complex information that a human brain could not possibly handle. The use of AI for revealing patterns and understanding our immune system is already underway, generating Instructive insights. Implementing similar tools on data generated from monitoring the levels of Cytokines, proteins that carry the immune system messages, in the bloodstream, will enable decoding these messages and leading to early detection of these diseases. Such evidence will also provide a crucial basis for ‘Evidence-Based Medicine’, leading to new therapeutics for the above illnesses.
At-Home Monitoring of Chronic Inflammation
To address the above need, we, at Proactive Diagnostics, are developing a Direct to Consumer (DTC) test to quantify large panel of Cytokines using sub-10μL finger-prick blood. With results available in 5-minutes. The test will provide these patients and their physicians an accurate snap-shot of their current inflammation state on an as-needed basis at the comfort of their own home. The results will be presented on their mobile device and analyzed using machine learning algorithms. These results will be crossed, with other personal information (food consumed, stress level workout, and sleeping hours), as well as local environmental information (e.g., allergen counts and air pollution) to help identify personal inflammation triggers. Such a solution at an affordable price ($5/test) will empower individuals to seek guidance from their physicians for making healthy lifestyle decisions and improving their quality of life.
