Given current events, many people are wearing face masks to protect themselves and others.
Given current events, many people are wearing face masks to protect themselves and others. But that same face mask could someday also collect useful health information. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry have demonstrated that a fiber inserted into an ordinary N95 face mask can collect compounds in exhaled breath aerosols for analysis. The new method could allow screening for disease biomarkers on a large scale.
Exhaled breath is an aerosol that contains a variety of volatile and non-volatile compounds dissolved in microdroplets. Some of these molecules could provide important health information, such as whether a person has a certain disease, or how their body metabolizes medications they’re taking. Mass spectrometry is a sensitive technique that can help identify these compounds. But first, sufficient amounts of the molecules must be collected, which often requires tedious procedures such as breathing into a tube or bag. Bin Hu and colleagues wondered if they could find a way to use face masks, which many people are wearing anyway, to collect and concentrate compounds exhaled in breath for later mass spectrometry analysis.
Read more at American Chemical Society
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