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Hen-Wei Huang, PhD
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Job Title
Associate Scientist
Academic Rank
Instructor
Department
Medicine
Authors
Hen-Wei Huang
Principal Investigator
Giovanni Traverso
Research Category: Allergy, Immunology, Inflammation, and Infectious Diseases
Tags
More than two decades ago it was discovered that nitric oxide (NO) concentrations in gas aspirated during colonoscopy were more than 100 times higher in patients diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) than controls. While
this provides a diagnostic opportunity, it has not been possible to perform in situ detection of NO in a non-invasive manner. This work presents the feasibility of in situ detection of NO by means of a capsule-like electrochemical gas sensor. Our in vivo results in a large animal model of intestinal inflammation show that NO can be directly detected at the site of inflammation and that it quickly dissipates to surrounding tissues, demonstrating the importance of in situ detection.
We developed a capsule-like gas sensor that can be easily swallowed to travel through the entire gastrointestinal tract like the capsule endoscopy. Unlike the capsule endoscopy taking images, the capsule-like gas sensor can detect the biomarkers that are associated with inflammation at inflammatory sites directly.
