Imagine a tiny wearable device that can track your body’s inflammation levels just by analyzing your sweat. That’s exactly what a team of scientists at Caltech has created—a simple, noninvasive sensor that could make it easier for people with chronic conditions to monitor their health at home.
Inflammation isn’t always a bad thing. When you get a cut or catch a cold, inflammation is part of your body’s natural healing process. But when it sticks around for too long, it can do more harm than good. Chronic inflammation is linked to serious health issues like heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung conditions such as COPD. So, being able to detect inflammation early is a big deal.
Usually, doctors check inflammation by measuring a protein in your blood called C-reactive protein, or CRP. But here’s the catch: getting this reading means drawing blood and sending it to a lab—something that’s not very practical to do often or at home.
That’s where Caltech’s new invention, the InflaStat, comes in.
This sensor sticks to your skin and reads CRP levels in your sweat—no needles or labs needed. It’s wireless, painless, and even connects to a smartphone app to show your inflammation levels in real time.
You might wonder, if CRP is in the blood, how can it be measured in sweat? That’s one of the challenges the researchers faced. CRP is a large protein that doesn’t easily pass from blood into sweat. On top of that, it’s only present in small amounts. To overcome this, the team had to design a super-sensitive sensor that could detect even the tiniest traces.
Here’s how it works in simple terms:
The sensor is made of a special material called graphene that’s been treated with lasers to create tiny pores, making room for CRP to attach.
These pores are lined with antibodies—little protein detectors that grab onto CRP molecules.
Tiny gold particles are added to help boost the signal, and special molecules generate a small electrical current when CRP is present.
That signal is sent to the app, where users can track their levels right away.
When tested on people with COPD, people recovering from COVID-19, and healthy individuals, the InflaStat accurately showed who had higher CRP levels. In fact, the CRP readings in sweat closely matched what you’d expect from a blood test.
This device could be a game changer for anyone managing a long-term health condition related to inflammation—like arthritis, bowel disease, or chronic lung problems. And because it’s so easy to use, people might soon be able to track their health from home without having to constantly visit the doctor.
The team hopes to expand this technology to detect other important markers in the body, including hormones and proteins linked to different diseases.
The study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Source:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-023-01059-5
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