Scientists are working on a new way to continuously monitor changes in the body. 

Being able to watch proteins change in real time could be a game-changer for patients with rapidly deteriorating conditions.

Researchers at Monash University and the University of Queensland have taken an antibody that binds EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) proteins and engineered it to monitor the concentration of EGFR proteins in serum solutions over time.

The growth of EGFR proteins in humans is associated with the development of a number of tumours, including cancer, as well as the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Using a new type of fluorescent dyes, the researchers created a biosensor from a well-known antibody that is able to ‘read out’ changes of the EGFR protein in real-time by monitoring detectable changes in the fluorescence.

The ability to monitor protein biomarker concentrations in body fluids in real-time is invaluable for tracking patients at risk of rapid deterioration, including those requiring personalised drug monitoring or those at high risk of complications arising from critical conditions, like sepsis, heart attack or tumour response to treatment.

No one has been able to engineer an antibody for continuous testing until now.

“All the diagnostic tests that we are familiar with involve sampling something (blood, urine, tissue) at a particular point in time and taking the same to a lab to interrogate it. But for patients suffering from acute conditions, in which time to diagnose and rapid treatment are very important, this traditional diagnostic process is not good enough,” says research leader Dr Simon Corrie says.

“Monitoring dynamic changes in proteins, for example protein levels increasing or decreasing over time, is likely to provide much more detailed information about a disease or treatment process, but the sensors required to do this don't exist outside of continuous glucose testing for diabetes.

“Our capacity to create antibodies, which bind reversibly to targets and can be ‘read out’ using fluorescence, means we can develop in vivo sensors. These sensors can monitor the levels of critical biomarkers as they change over time in response to a disease or treatment, rather than just sending a sample to a lab and getting a snapshot in a day or two.

“These biomarkers could include the amount of surface proteins on a cancer cell and whether or not a drug causes them to reduce in size, therefore testing the efficacy of treatment. It can also be used to monitor the concentration of potentially toxic drugs, like some antibiotics.”

The research is accessible here.