Portable Instrument For Assessing Zinc Deficiency In Children and The Elderly

用于评估儿童和老年人缺锌的便携式仪器

• 批准号: 8459167
• 负责人: CHRISTOPHER J. FREDERICKSON
• 金额: $ 14.46万
• 依托单位: NEUROBIOTEX, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8459167
• 关键词: Affect; African American; Agreement; Air; Algorithms; Allergens; American; Antibodies; Attention; Bedside Testings; Blood; Blood Chemical Analysis; Budgets; Businesses; Capital; Carbon; Cellular Phone; Cessation of life; Child; Choice Behavior; Cholesterol; Clinic; Clinical; Clinical Data; Clinical Research; Clinical Treatment; Clinical Trials; Clip; Code; Cognitive; Collection; Complex; Consensus; Data; Dental; Detection; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Diarrhea; Dietary Zinc; Distal; Distress; Documentation; Drops; Dust; Dyes; Economic Factors; Elderly; Electronic Mail; Elements; Figs - dietary; Food; Foundations; Future; Generations; Glucose; Goals; Gold; Government; Growth; Health Fairs; Health Personnel; Hispanics; Hospitals; Hour; Household; Imaging technology; Immune; Immune system; In Situ; Indium; Individual; Internet; Isotopes; Keratin; Laboratories; Lasers; Lead; Light; Liquid substance; Longitudinal Studies; Malignant Neoplasms; Malnutrition; Marketing; Mass Spectrum Analysis; Measurement; Measures; Mechanics; Memory; Methods; Military Personnel; Minority; Modeling; Monitor; Nail plate; Nitrogen; Noble Gases; Nursing Homes; Nutrient; Nutritional; Nutritional status; Optics; Paint; Patients; Performance; Persons; Phase; Physiologic pulse; Plasma; Polymers; Population; Populations at Risk; Principal Investigator; Procedures; Proteins; Proxy; Reading; Recording of previous events; Research; Residual state; Risk; Role; Running; Rural; Sampling; Schools; Scientist; Site; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Solutions; Spectrum Analysis; Structure of nail of finger; Supplementation; Surface; Surveys; System; Testing; Time; Toxin; Tube; UNICEF; USAID; Variant; Venous; Vitamin A; Water; Work; World Health; World Health Organization; Youth; Zinc; Zinc deficiency; absorption; analytical method; base; cost; cost effective; emission spectroscopy; improved; inner city; innovation; instrument; light emission; nanosecond; novel; nutrition; operation; optical fiber; public health relevance; purge; ratiometric; remediation; solid state; stable isotope; standard measure; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We will build a portable instrument for quick, easy, and non-invasive, assessment of dietary zinc deficiency. Our proposed diagnostic measurements can be done in just 2-3 minutes per subject, with spectroscopic readings taken off one of the subject's FIGURE 1. fingernails. Our product will use a low-energy, nanosecond, laser pulse to "interrogate" the fingernail surface by creating a "spark" (plasma) and will quantify the light emissions (spectral lines) from that brief fingernail plasma. (We principal investigators have done this on our own fingernails many times. The minuscule laser "pop" can be felt, but does not hurt and leaves no mark.) We show below that we can detect and quantitate zinc (and other elements) in the nail plasma for an accurate, ratiometric measurement solution. A typical fingernail represents 3-to-4 month's growth, and by systematically moving the point of plasma creation along the nail from proximal to distal, we can survey ~ 3-4 months of the subject's recent zinc nutritive history. (Measurement of other nutrients and toxins such as Fe, Cu, Pb or Hg can be added in future products in our line. This analytical method we are using is called "Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy" (LIBS), and it is a new variant of what we used to call "atomic emission spectroscopy." Modern solid-state lasers, CCDs, photodiodes, and ICs have allowed the entire instrument to be shrunk to the size and form-factor shown for the Kigre LIBS product in Figure1. (NOTE: We added to the LIBS instrument picture a second picture of a typical pulse oximeter to show how our optical fibers would be directed to the fingernail.) Complete, portable LIBS instruments are commercially available (e.g., Fig 1) for ~ $20-$30K, and they can be run for hours on 1A-12V battery weighing ~10 pounds. Thus, the instruments we develop can certainly be field-portable and easily used in schools, clinics, exam rooms, nursing homes, or mobile "health-Fair" units. The Significance of our invention is that it will facilitate detection and informed-remediation of dietary zinc deficiecy. Such deficiency affects about 1/3 of the world's population and is especially devastating to young children. As things stand now, in 2012, the only way to diagnose zinc deficiency is to draw 3-5 mL of venous blood, centrifuge it in a suitable collection tube, then send the sample to an ICPMS or AAS laboratory for instrumental analysis requiring complex and expensive procedures. This means that even US citizens at risk are generally not tested for zinc deficiency. Zinc deficiency is widespread among American children, especially the poor and minorities, where deficiency rates can reach 30% among inner city African American and rural Hispanic youth. The stunting of physical and cognitive development of the young from zinc deficiency is wide-spread, and tragic. The other US population at risk is the elderly, among whom various poor food choices and behaviors lead as many as half of those admitted to hospital to be clinically zinc deficient. Such deficiency weakens the immune defenses of patients and exacerbates numerous ailments. The innovation we bring is to adapt a novel and essentially untried solution to a long-standing clinical problem. We will be inventing all of the mechanical, electrical, and bio-analytical systems, and algorithms that will allow LIBS to be used in the field by health care workers. There are two main problems that we must solve. First, the raw intensity of the zinc atomic emissions must be combined with emission intensities from other fingernail elements in order to generate an accurate, ratiometric measurement of fingernail zinc. For this, we will do LIBS determinations on nail clippings, then measure the zinc in the same clippings by our reference method, which is stable-isotope-dilution ICP mass spectrometry. We will iteratively adjust and modify our LIBS procedures until we can duplicate the stable-isotope dilution values. The second problem to solve will be the elucidation of the relationship between a subject's fingernail zinc and his or her zinc nutritional status. For that, e will compare LIBS measurements from fingernails with the blood-based "gold standard" measurements of zinc nutritional status, using subjects from both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal zinc-deficiency study.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们将建立一种便携式工具，以快速，简单且无创的饮食锌缺乏症评估。我们提出的诊断测量可以在每个受试者的2-3分钟内完成，光谱读数从受试者的图1.指甲中删除。我们的产品将使用低能，纳秒激光脉冲通过创建“ Spark”（等离子体）来“询问”指甲表面，并将从该短暂指甲等离子体中量化光排放（光谱线）。 （我们的主要研究人员已经多次用自己的指甲做到了这一点。可以感觉到微小激光“ pop”，但不会伤害，也没有留下任何痕迹。）我们在下面表明，我们可以在指甲等离子体中检测和定量锌（以及其他元素），以获得准确的，级别的测量解决方案。 典型的指甲代表3到4个月的生长，并且通过系统地将沿指甲的血浆创造点从近端移到远端，我们可以对受试者最近的锌营养历史进行约3-4个月的调查。 （测量其他营养素和毒素，例如Fe，Cu，Pb或Hg，可以在我们的未来产品中添加。我们使用的这种分析方法称为“激光诱导的崩溃光谱镜头”（LIBS），它是我们用来称为“我们用来称为“ Atomic发射光谱”的新变体。对于图1中的kigre libs产物显示的尺寸和形式我们开发的工具肯定可以在学校，诊所，考试室，疗养院或移动“健康费用”单元中轻松使用。这种缺乏会影响世界人口的1/3，对幼儿尤其是毁灭性的。如今，在2012年，诊断锌缺乏症的唯一方法是在合适的收集管中绘制3-5毫升静脉血液，将样品离心，然后将样品发送到ICPMS或AAS实验室进行工具分析，需要复杂且昂贵的程序。这意味着，即使是有危险的美国公民，通常也没有测试锌缺乏症。美国儿童，尤其是贫困和少数群体中，锌的缺乏症是普遍存在的，在非裔美国人和乡村西班牙裔青年中，缺乏率可以达到30％。从锌缺乏的年轻人的身体和认知发展的阻碍是广泛的，也是悲剧性的。美国其他处于危险中的人口是老年人，其中各种糟糕的食物选择和行为导致多达一半被送往医院的人在临床上缺乏锌。这种缺乏削弱了患者的免疫防御能力，并加剧了许多疾病。 我们带来的创新是为了使一种新颖而本质上未经尝试的解决方案适应长期存在的临床问题。我们将发明所有机械，电气和生物分析系统和算法，这些算法将允许卫生保健工作者在现场使用LIB。我们必须解决两个主要问题。首先，必须将锌原子排放的原始强度与其他指甲元素的发射强度相结合，以便生成针对指甲锌的准确测量。为此，我们将对指甲剪接进行LIBS的确定，然后通过我们的参考方法在同一剪接中测量锌，这是稳定的异位素稀释ICP质谱法。我们将迭代调整和修改LIBS程序，直到我们可以复制稳定的异位稀释值为止。要解决的第二个问题将是阐明受试者的指甲锌与他或她的锌营养状况之间的关系。为此，E使用横截面和纵向锌缺陷研究的受试者将指甲的LIBS测量与锌营养状况的血液“金标准”测量进行比较。