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half of the participants took blood test less than once a five-year frequency (Fig. 1), | half of the participants took blood test less than once a five-year frequency (Fig. 1), | ||
which is impractical for early detection and early treatment of diseases. | which is impractical for early detection and early treatment of diseases. | ||
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will also upload and attribute the data to public health analysis under the | will also upload and attribute the data to public health analysis under the | ||
users’ consent. | users’ consent. | ||
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Revision as of 07:12, 27 August 2018
Description
People around the world are growing awareness to their health condition. To
monitor the health condition, a wide range of biomarkers-- special substances in the
bloodstream representing the physiological and pathological states-- has been used in
clinical diagnoses. Blood test is one of the most common way for detecting
biomarkers but it suffers from several inevitable drawbacks such as invasiveness,
time-consuming procedure, demand for medical staff service, non real-time tracking
and so on. These disadvantages may discourage people from the periodic medical
checkup. Indeed, according to a survey (of 1862 samples) pulled by our team, nearly
half of the participants took blood test less than once a five-year frequency (Fig. 1),
which is impractical for early detection and early treatment of diseases.
To get rid of limits such as invasiveness and non real-time tracking, our team
proposed Biowatcher, engineered reporter cells that enable detection and autonomous
report of soluble biomarkers in bloodstream. The sensing parts of the reporter
cells are powered by nanobodies, the single-domain antibody that can be
engineered to detect different biomarkers. Binding of biomarkers on
nanobodies triggers our synthetic gene circuits and in turn induces
autonomous bioluminescent system as a readout for devices to detect. This
kind of autonomous reporting system can have great varieties of application
by installation on wearable devices, watch for example. With the required
software (will be displayed at the giant jamboree?), the wearable devices
could track the level of risk factors by measuring the bioluminescence
intensity and record the data as numbers and graphs. It will send alert to
users once the level of the risk factors is too high. Meanwhile, there will be
suggestions of nearby hospitals according to the users’ location. The system
will also upload and attribute the data to public health analysis under the
users’ consent.
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