Healthcare professionals know that the earlier a disease is detected, the better the outcome for the patient. Working with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, the MSU team developed a new technique for analyzing plasma proteins that reveals these disease biomarkers earlier.
“The ability to identify these biomarkers advances medicine in two key ways,” says one of the lead authors, Dr. Morteza Mahmoudi, professor of radiology and precision health in the MSU College of Human Medicine. “First of all, with a simple blood test, diseases can be identified and diagnosed earlier. This means faster treatment and better outcomes for patients. Second, it helps doctors choose the most effective treatment plan. Knowing at the very beginning of a cancer that it is metastatic allows us to choose an appropriate treatment approach.”
Reduce the background of highly abundant plasma proteins
The innovative approach is in fact to considerably reduce the masking effects of very abundant plasma proteins, which hinder the detection of critical biomarkers in human plasma. By minimizing these interactions, it becomes possible to optimize the visibility and identification of low abundant but significant proteins, and to achieve the detection of important biomarkers that were previously hidden. This improvement considerably increases diagnostic capabilities, particularly in terms of “precocity” and precision.
How does it work? The new method reduces interference from the most common proteins in the blood, allowing researchers to detect proteins that are low in abundance and less known, but crucial for identifying diseases. By adding small molecules to the blood sample, they can expose these important proteins on the surface of the nanoparticles, making them easier to spot using mass spectrometry, a technique that uses electric fields and magnetic to separate and analyze ionized particles.
A contribution to precision medicine: the new method advances precision medicine, an approach to patient care that personalizes treatments based on a patient’s genetics, environment and lifestyle. Unlike the traditional one-size-fits-all model, precision medicine strives to offer more effective and personalized healthcare solutions. This approach is particularly important in the field of cancers, where genetic profiling of tumors can lead to better potential outcomes and fewer side effects.
“We are excited about the unique ability of this new approach to identify biomarkers that can indicate various diseases across the health spectrum, because the power of our system is limitless.”
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