Ex-Madras Researcher's Sweat Sensor Predicts Cytokine Storm In Covid-19 Patients

Scientists and the medical community across the world are learning new things as they study the mysterious novel coronavirus. There¡¯s emerging evidence of an abnormal immune response in severe Covid-19 cases called ¡®cytokine storm¡¯, where the excessive inflammation can damage organs, causing severe illness and death.

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And therefore, early detection becomes all the more important. Blood tests can measure cytokines, but they are difficult to perform at home, and they can¡¯t continuously monitor the proteins¡¯ levels.

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Researchers at the University of Texas have now developed a sensitive sweat sensor that requires tiny amounts of passive sweat to predict whether a person will develop a ¡®cytokine storm¡¯.

The researchers, who published their results this week at the American Chemical Society spring meeting, believe that the wristwatch-like device also has potential to help patients with other conditions or infections such as flu, which can also result in a cytokine storm.

Shalini Prasad

¡°Especially now in the context of COVID-19, if you could monitor pro-inflammatory cytokines and see them trending upwards, you could treat patients early, even before they develop symptoms,¡± says lead researcher Shalini Prasad, who received her Bachelor¡¯s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Madras in 2001.

How the system works

The new sensor includes a couple of electrodes coated with antibodies that can bind to seven inflammatory proteins that are seen at high levels in patients experiencing a cytokine storm. They include: interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-¦Á (TNF-¦Á), TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand, IL-10, interferon-¦Ã-induced protein-10 and C-reactive protein.

Shalini Prasad

When the device is worn on the arm, passive sweat diffuses into a disposable sensor strip and changes electrical current upon binding with the proteins, giving off different signals to a reader. The reader then wirelessly transfers these data to a smartphone app that converts electrical measurements to protein concentrations. After a few minutes, the old sweat diffuses out, and newly excreted sweat enters the strip so that measurements can be taken over time.

The device is still at the prototype stage, but in a small observational study, they tested them on six healthy people and five people with influenza--and the cytokine levels in all of them were the same as that observed in their blood samples.

The sensor tracked cytokine levels for up to 168 hours before the sensor strip needed to be replaced. Researchers are now planning clinical trials of the cytokine sensor in people with respiratory infections.

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¡°Access to COVID-19 patients has been a challenge because healthcare workers are overwhelmed and don¡¯t have time to test investigational devices,¡± Prasad says.

¡°But we¡¯re going to continue to test it for all respiratory infections because the disease trigger itself doesn¡¯t matter--it¡¯s what¡¯s happening with the cytokines that we¡¯re interested in monitoring.¡±