A test that can predict your risk of getting more than 60 different diseases from a single drop of blood may be a step closer, experts believe.
Researchers say they are ‘extremely excited’ about findings which indicate that thousands of proteins in a drop of blood can onset of many different conditions.
The study, published in Nature Medicine, opens up new possibilities for predicting a wide range of diseases, including rare conditions which can take months and years to diagnose.
Professor Claudia Langenberg, of Queen Mary University in London, said: ‘Measuring one protein for a specific reason, such as troponin to diagnose a heart attack, is standard clinical practice.
Researchers say they are ‘extremely excited’ about findings which indicate that thousands of proteins in a drop of blood can onset of many different conditions
The test is reminiscent of the one offered by Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. She claimed to have developed a device that could perform more than 240 tests, from cholesterol levels to complex genetic analysis, with just a single pinprick of blood
‘We are extremely excited about the opportunity to identify new markers for screening and diagnosis from the thousands of proteins circulating and now measurable in human blood.’
In the study, scientists used advanced techniques to pinpoint a signature of between five and 20 of the most important proteins – found in blood plasma – for the prediction of 67 different diseases.
They studied data from more than 40,000 randomly selected people from the UK.
According to the findings, protein signatures can predict the onset of 67 diseases, including blood and bone marrow cancer multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, motor neurone disease and dilated cardiomyopathy – a heart muscle disease.
The researchers said that protemic studies, or analysis of proteins, could help identify risk factors for even more diseases.
Dr Julia Carrasco Zanini Sanchez said: ‘We are extremely excited about the opportunities that our protein signatures may have for earlier detection and ultimately improved prognosis for many diseases, including severe conditions.
‘We identified so many promising examples, the next step is to select high priority diseases and evaluate their proteomic prediction in a clinical setting.’
The researchers found that models based on protein prediction were better than models based on clinically recorded information.
Prediction based on blood cell counts, cholesterol, kidney function and diabetes tests did not perform as well as the protein prediction models for most examples, the researchers found.
The test is reminiscent of the one offered by Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.
She claimed to have developed a device that could perform more than 240 tests, from cholesterol levels to complex genetic analysis, with just a single pinprick of blood.
This was later found to not be true. Holmes, 40, was sent to prison in May 2023 for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
She is expected to be release in 2032.
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