Detect Disease with Jello-like Substance

The Type of Jell-O You Don't Want to Jiggle

Based on Jell-O and the way it wiggles, a way of detecting various diseases was invented by researchers from the University of Michigan. They came up with a way to test if you have a disease or not by one's exhalation. This is only for certain diseases, but it is still a very efficient way to check out your health. Just hope that this new mechanism doesn't turn into gel because you might be sick!

Having a large amount of nitric oxide in your exhaled breath is a sign of disease such as tuberculosis and lung cancer. With this new material, monitoring the amount of nitric oxide could diagnose disease or measure effects of treatment for disease. It is very easy to detect if the results come out positive for nitric oxide because the material turns into a gel, and doesn't flow anymore.

The difference between Jell-O and this material is that Jell-O is based on proteins where this is molecular. They are similar because when they are both heated, the material is dissolved but turns into gel. The newly made material is made to turn into a gel on cue (the nitric oxide). Other things like this have been made, but nothing that turns into a gel.

This way is much easier than most procedures in detecting and monitoring disease. This way, all you have to do it breathe and flip a vial of the material over and see if a gel has been made. As of right now, this is not out for use in clinics, but they are aiming to have it be that way (it is not sensitive enough). With this idea comes many more; it is being looked into to design this type of material to detect hazardous materials in the environment like explosives. Keep an eye out!

-Alyson Paige (Week 6)

Update: My thoughts to answer bloggers' comments: I am not sure how good of an indicator it is of these diseases, but that depends on how much nitric oxide the is exhaled I am assuming. I can also guess that this could be done for other diseases if a certain chemical is exhaled with that certain disease. It does not say exactly how long it takes to react, but I can assure you it will be faster than any other way. To find explosives, I am sure they will do the same thing as I just mentioned to test another disease. You would find something that reacts with the vapors/chemicals from explosives and see if the fluid turns into a gel from being in the environment. I am also not sure how they will have to make it more sensitive. I am assuming it presently reacts with a large amount of nitric oxide, and they have to get it so it will react with a simple exhalation. Breathing much more on the substance might be able to fix this.