June 01, 2020
Enjoy these interesting stories from the scientific community.
*-- Ring might help detect COVID-19 outbreaks in healthcare workers, public --*
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University this week announced plans to begin studying a new device that might help spot future outbreaks of COVID-19 and other infections among healthcare workers and, eventually, the public.
The wearable technology, called the Oura ring, is intended to track the body's heart rate, temperature, movement and sleep patterns. The measurements, when combined with responses to daily symptom surveys, can assist clinicians to predict the onset of illness, researchers said.
FAU researchers said that a study designed to assess the effectiveness of the Oura ring will begin as soon as possible.
"The hope is that we can develop a predictive algorithm from the ring data that will be useful in alerting individuals, as well as populations experiencing outbreaks," the project's principal investigator, Janet Robishaw, told UPI.
"The earlier that outbreaks are identified, the faster mitigation interventions can be used to contain the infections and prevent them from spreading," said Robishaw, who is senior associate dean for research at Florida Atlantic's Schmidt College of Medicine.
New data released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 60,000 American healthcare workers have been infected with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and that 300 have died as a result.
The Florida Atlantic research is part of TemPerfect, a study led by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco. The manufacturers of the Oura ring are sponsoring the study and providing more than 2,000 healthcare workers with the product.
Users of the Oura ring also can register to participate in the study, using the company's app or by signing up online.
The Oura ring is a thick, silver ring that resembles a wedding band, according to the Florida Atlantic researchers. It is worn around the clock to continuously provide data in real-time.
As part of TemPerfect, the data will alert users and the researchers of physiological changes that might indicate they are developing an infection.
The university's research team will incorporate two additional phases in the study by determining if participants go on to develop an acute COVID-19 infection and by determining the prevalence rate in the study population.
They are currently in the first phase of the study, with clinical physicians, resident physicians and fellows from the school's Schmidt College of Medicine who are caring for patients on the frontline of the pandemic and wearing the ring.
The study will take 12 weeks to complete. Participants also will undergo weekly viral testing to detect if they have an acute COVID-19 infection, using a new COVID-19 viral test developed by Robishaw and her colleagues that evaluates saliva instead of using a nasal swab.
At six and 12 weeks in the study period, Florida Atlantic researchers will perform blood tests on study participants to identify whether they have developed an immune response to COVID-19. The university's portion of the TemPerfect study plans to recruit some 200 participants.
As funding becomes available to purchase additional Oura rings, Robishaw hopes to extend the study to assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.
"Our next studies will target nursing homes and college dormitories, where many people are living in close contact and early detection will be most effective," she said.
*-- New sampling method allows scientists to observe cellular changes over time --*
 Scientists have developed a new method for sampling cells multiple times without causing permanent damage to the cell.
Most cell sampling and analysis methods, including genetic and protein sequencing, destroy the target cell. As a result, sampling results provide only a single snapshot.
Cells are complex and dynamic. Capturing their evolving behaviors and their reactions to outside stimuli requires more than a snapshot frozen in time.
The new method, called localized electroporation, uses mass spectrometry to sample and analyze enzymatic activity inside a cell without doing irreparable harm. The technique relies on what scientists dubbed the live cell analysis device, or LCAD. The device allows scientists to perform what is essentially a biopsy, but at nano scales on a single cell.
Localized electroporation and the LCAD, described Monday in the journal Small, could be used to study a variety of cellular behaviors and reactions. For example, the novel technique could be used to observe how cells respond to different cancer treatments.
"By exploiting advances in microfluidics and nanotechnology, localized electroporation can be employed to temporarily open small pores in the cell membrane enabling the transport of molecules into the cells or extraction of intracellular contents," study co-author Horacio Espinosa, professor of manufacturing and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, said in a news release. "Since the method is minimally invasive to the cells, it can be repeated multiple times without their disruption."
"Certain enzymes may be linked to disease pathways, such as certain types of cancers, and they may be the target of therapeutics," said study co-author Milan Mrksich, Northwestern University vice president for research. "Using this platform, it is now possible to study how enzymatic activity varies between healthy cells and cells from a tumor biopsy."
The technique could also be used to study how a cell's enzymatic activity responds to different types of treatment.
Instead of lots of single snapshots, scientists will getting the equivalence of a motion picture of cellular changes, allowing researchers to study a variety of dynamic cellular processes, including cell differentiation, disease progression and drug response.
"We envision that this technique can be used in scenarios such as screening drugs or designing and optimizing treatment courses that can arrest disease progression in cells," Espinosa said.
In addition to delicately and precisely extracting cellular material, the LCAD could be used to deliver new materials, like edited DNA or proteins, to a cell.
"We have used the same concept of localized electroporation to do CRISPR gene editing and we are now using machine learning to automate the process," Espinosa said.
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