Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine claim to have created a microchip-test for diagnosing type 1 diabetes that can improve how patients around the world are taken care of.
The researchers also say the new test can help scientists learn more about the disease, according to Genetic Engineering News. The inexpensive and portable device uses nanotechnology to find type 1 diabetes outside hospitals and microchips to distinguish between the two main forms of diabetes mellitus. While high blood-sugar levels are associated with both of these forms, they have different causes and treatments.
Brian Feldman, senior author of the paper, said before the invention of the test, scientists could only use a slow, expensive test that was available in advanced healthcare settings exclusively. Feldman is an M.D., Ph.D, associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at the Bechtel Endowed Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine.
"With the new test, not only do we anticipate being able to diagnose diabetes more efficiently and more broadly, we will also understand diabetes better, both the natural history and how new therapies impact the body," he said.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an attack on the immune system in healthy tissue, resulting in the person's body losing the ability to create the hormone insulin, which is important in the production of sugar. When the disease begins, a person's own antibodies start attacking cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, Medical Xpress reported.
Scientists need new, better ways to treat type 1 diabetes because of recent changes in who gets what form of the disease, which have increased risks for categorizing patients based on age, weight and ethnicity. Increasing evidence of early, aggressive treatment of the disease has proved helpful for improving long-term prognoses for patients.
Both the old test and the microchip-based test were used on blood samples from people recently diagnosed with diabetes and from people who didn't have diabetes. The microchip is able to find the antibodies with a technique based on fluorescence. The chip's base is covered with nanoparticle-sized islands of gold that make the fluorescent signal stronger, which helps the chip's ability to detect the antibodies. The chip, unlike the old test, doesn't use any radioactivity, needs minimal training to use, and can provide results in minutes, Medical Xpress reported.
Feldman explained that the new test may be able to help not only new diabetics, but also people at risk of developing type 1 diabetes, such as the patients close relatives, because doctors would be able to track their autoantibody levels quickly and cheaply before symptoms are shown. He added that because the test is inexpensive, it could also lead to the first broad screening for diabetes auto-antibodies in the global population, Genetic Engineering News reported.
The researchers plan to launch a startup company so it can get the test approved by the FDA and sell it in the U.S. and parts of the world where it is too hard and expensive to use the old test, Medical Xpress reported.
"We would like this to be a technology that satisfies global need," Feldman said.
A paper about the new test was published online in the journal Nature Medicine.
