Researchers develop wearable white blood cell tracker

A Rutgers researcher, through his spinoff company, led a team to design and test a device that could quickly count a person’s white blood cells with a single drop of blood, the same way glucose meters analyze blood sugar level quickly.

The development of the device by researchers at Rutgers startup RizLab Health Inc., as well as the clinical validation, are described in the scientific and medical journal. PLoS One.

Mehdi Javanmard, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Rutgers School of Engineering, is the co-founder and CEO of Princeton-based RizLab Health Inc. He launched the startup based on advances made in his Rutgers lab.

“Normally, doing a blood count requires a phlebotomist to take a needle and draw significant amounts of venous blood and send the samples to labs where they are tested, which sometimes takes hours or even days,” Javanmard said. “Our portable device enables testing close to the patient, while requiring only a tiny amount of blood and returning results within minutes, allowing clinicians to make decisions almost immediately.

Called the CytoTracker leukometer, the device is designed to facilitate the rapid detection of an elevated or reduced white blood cell count, a critical signal of the status of a patient’s immune system. A high or low white blood cell count can indicate the intensity of an infection, the presence of life-threatening illnesses such as sepsis, or determine how patients respond to chemotherapy and psychotropic medications.

In collaboration with a clinical team at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine Pediatric Clinical Research Center led by Dr. Tanaya Bhowmick and the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, the device was successfully tested in tests via direct comparison with a laboratory bench. hematology analyzer, a conventional blood testing technique.

“Rapid test results have revolutionized the field of medicine,” said Bhowmick, an infectious disease physician and co-author of the paper. “The white blood cell count is a parameter that doctors routinely order to assess a patient for possible infection. Having this information quickly can help triage patients in the outpatient setting.”

Results showed that the CytoTracker Leukometer was at least 97% accurate and met clinical standards.

White blood cells, or leukocytes, protect the body from infections. Colorless, they constitute approximately 1% of human blood and are mainly formed in the bone marrow. Certain subtypes of leukocytes have different functions. For example, neutrophils kill bacteria, fungi, and foreign debris.

A low white blood cell count indicates that a person is prone to infections. A high white blood cell count means either there is an infection or an underlying medical problem.

Javanmard said he envisions multiple uses for the device. Sepsis in a patient entering an emergency room could be detected more quickly on the device than with current methods requiring a blood draw and lab test, he said. Oncologists could quickly determine whether patients undergoing chemotherapy need a white blood cell booster.

The device could also make it easier for psychiatric patients to continue taking their medications. Patients taking clozapine, a common treatment for disorders such as schizophrenia, often experience neutropenia, or low neutrophil counts. These patients must have regular tests to determine neutrophil levels before they can get a prescription. Javanmard said this often prevents patients from getting much-needed treatment.

In his Rutgers lab, Javanmard and his students sought to perfect the capabilities of a miniaturized electronic cytometric technique that detects microscopic particles by directing them through tiny channels containing electrodes. The process is akin to scanning people as they individually pass through a security gate at an airport; however, it uses electrical signals instead of videography.

In a recent breakthrough, Javanmard said he and lab members used the cell flow technique to develop a test so sensitive that it could one day revolutionize medical approaches to disease outbreaks. RizLab Health has focused on advanced electronic cytometry development and manufacturing with the goal of achieving regulatory approval and, ultimately, commercialization.

Javanmard is enthusiastic about applying the lab’s knowledge to practical problems to produce inventions such as the CytoTracker leukometer.

“We set out to solve one of the holy grails of medicine, which is analyzing a tiny amount of a patient’s blood in a way that can guide clinicians and improve clinical outcomes,” Javanmard said. “We believe this will have a huge impact on infectious diseases, oncology and psychiatry.”

Javanmard added: “Others have unsuccessfully attempted to tackle this holy grail by aiming to identify dozens or even hundreds of biochemical constituents with a single drop of blood. Such attempts are fundamentally very difficult. It’s realistic to focus only on white blood cells with key subtypes to start.”

The device must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration before it can be marketed and used for clinical applications, Javanmard said. It is currently intended for research only.

Other scientists featured in the Rutgers paper included Fei Chen, a nurse at the Pediatric Clinical Research Center at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, and Sunanda Gaur, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and director of the Pediatric Clinical Research Center at Rutgers. the faculty of medicine. Baylor scientists included Kelly Keene, Farzad Soleimani and Zubaid Rafique.