doctor could presently have the power to name illness with just a tear . In a new study , scientists have render it ’s potential to identify biomarkers for diseases in human tears , pop the question a Modern and non - invading way to nail disease . The new research was cover today in the journalACS Nano .

Researchers from Wenzhou Medical University in China developed a system that harvests and purifies tiny blobs cry exosomes from snag , which they call Incorporated Tear Exosomes Analysis via Rapid - isolation System , ” or iTEARS for myopic .

Exosomes are extracellular vesicle loose by electric cell , typically 30 to 150 nanometers in diam – muchsmaller than most bacterium . Think of them as minuscule bubbles that can channelize useful thing – such as nucleic acids , proteins , lipide , and metabolite – to neighboring cellphone like a bantam postman . If you take a deeper look at the content of an exosome , you could gain all kinds of insights into the health of a individual . The comportment of a special protein in an exosome , for instance , could be a clue that the person has a particular disease .

scientist have antecedently found a way to isolate and analyze exosomes from pee and blood plasma , but this latest study was keen to see whether the same could be done with tear .

Using their iTEARS system , the team was able-bodied to successfully distinguish between sizable people and patients with various type of dry eye disease based on over 400 different type of proteins detect in weeping ’ exosomes . Amazingly , it was able to do this in just 5 minutes .

They were also able to do the same with people with diabetic retinopathy , a complication of diabetes that involves hurt to the back of the center , by look for the presence of certain flake of familial material ( MicroRNAs ) in the exosome .

The researcher are affirmative that this is just the beginning of iTEARS . They ’re confident that the system has the potential to utilise tears to name conditions that do n’t even straight affect the centre , let in neurodegenerative diseases and malignant neoplastic disease .

As establish by former studies , wealready knowthat sure biomarkers in tear are a solid indication that a patient may be experiencing chest Crab . By looking at the contents of the petite exosomes , it may be possible to gain an even more sensitive and accurate aspect of these eccentric of biomarkers that point disease .

With a few tweaks and a bit of fine - tuning , the research worker on the iTEARS project say a person could theoretically take a trip to the Dr. , spill a split , and know whether they are in the early stage of disease within minutes .

“ In conclusion , we show the iTEARS for deciphering the secrets of diseases from a tear , which reveals the promising role of split exosomes in disease sorting and course monitoring of ocular disorder and other diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancer , ” the field authors compose . “ By being applied in prolonged disease type and validated with abundant clinical typesetter’s case , we anticipate our teardrop - based iTEARS to be the alternative tool for full stop - of - precaution - test . ”