CFD Research Detects PTSD Using Wu and Eda’s AiCAP
Each year, people around the United States set off fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. Though such colorful
explosions are meant to be festive, they can also trigger distressing flashbacks in Americans who have experienced gun violence or bombings, including thousands of military veterans.
Those flashbacks are part of a longterm mental illness known as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Though PTSD affects six percent of Americans, diagnosis is highly subjective, relying on a patient’s willingness and ability to accurately self-report symptoms.
“With PTSD, diagnosis is complicated. Every patient’s condition is different,” said Jayne Wu, a professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Wu, an expert in microelectronics and microfluidics, wants to create a generalized biosensor that can be used to objectively diagnose complex diseases like PTSD. She and UT Institute of Agriculture Professor Shigetoshi Eda have spent the last 14 years developing AiCAP—a patented biosensor array with the unique ability to simultaneously identify a wide range of biomarkers (molecules in the body that can indicate disease).
In 2023, the duo was contacted by CFD Research Corporation, which has been working with the U.S. military to create a low-cost, minimally invasive diagnostic tool for PTSD. The research group knew AiCAP was the key.
Wu, Eda, and CFD Primary Investigator David Gaddes have created a sensor which incorporates AiCAP and can already identify more than a dozen PTSD-related biomarkers from asingle blood sample. They are hoping to achieve FDA approval, then expand the technology to diagnose other diseases like traumatic brain injury, cancer, sepsis, and organ damage.
“PTSD is a great example to demonstrate the potential benefits of our sensor array in furthering precision (personalized) medicine,” Wu said.
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Unlike the flu, PTSD does not have a single diagnostic biomarker. Dozens of biomarkers are associated with PTSD, including proteins, nucleic acids like DNA, fats, and carbohydrates.
“Usually, you need a different detector for each type of biomarker,” Eda said. “Jayne’s approach within AiCAP allows you to detect different types of biomarkers using a single device.”
That’s a major boost to multi-omics, the simultaneous study of many types of biological molecules, and it’s applicable in many domains. With CFD’s help, AiCAP will be the first multi-omic biosensor usable in outpatient doctor’s offices.
“It’s very valuable for industry and university researchers to collaborate,” Gaddes said. “University researchers are coming up with technologies that are new, or which have new applications, and demonstrating that they work. Companies like CFD can then come in and develop the technology into an actual product that’s very easy for a doctor to run and operate.”