New Diagnostic Device Identifies COVID-19 Patients at Risk of Potentially Lethal Cytokine Storm

Researchers have developed a diagnostic device, called an Immuno-storm chip, that could identify which cancer and COVID-19 patients are at risk of a potentially lethal ‘cytokine storm’.

The device was invented by scientists from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at The University of Queensland (Queensland, Australia) and could help healthcare workers triage and closely monitor high risk patients and to begin treatment much earlier.

Cytokines are small proteins that act as messengers between cells in the immune system. They play a critical role in triggering inflammation by stimulating the movement of immune cells toward sites of injury or infection. However, if the release of cytokines becomes uncontrolled, this causes hyperinflammation which damages tissue. This, in turn, causes more cytokines to be released in a vicious, potentially lethal cycle called a ‘cytokine storm’. Cytokine storms can arise during a variety of diseases, as well as in response to immune-therapies. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to predict who will develop a cytokine storm. Until recently, they were thought to arise very suddenly, but there is now evidence that a very faint but distinctive pattern of cytokines begins to emerge several days before the full-blown storm.

Scientists at the AIBN have developed a nanotechnology device, called an Immuno-storm chip, that can detect this early warning signal on a miniaturized platform with minimal sample. They designed a nanoscale array of gold pillars to which they attached antibodies that stick to specific cytokines in blood. If these cytokines are present in a blood sample as small as a single drop, they will bind to the gold ‘nanopillars’. These captured cytokines are then detected by gold-silver ‘nanotag’ particles. The team designed these nanotags to emit light whenever they encounter a cytokine. The chip’s small size - about the size of a SIM card - meant the diagnostic technology could eventually be made relatively portable.

“Whether in a cancer treatment setting or when monitoring infectious diseases such as acute COVID-19, long-haul COVID-19 and sepsis, the Immuno-storm chip could provide critical medical information that guides important clinical decisions. Critically, it could inform doctors to begin, or to ease off treatments, by accurately monitoring the patient’s immune response before it goes crazy,” said Professor Matt Trau, a researcher AIBN. “Detection of the detailed cytokine signature for vulnerable COVID-19 patients with the Immuno-storm chip could also be used to personalize the therapy of these patients, tuned in to alleviate their specific excessive immune system response.”

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The University of Queensland