by A test that can predict your risk of more than 60 different diseases from a single drop of blood could be a step forward, experts say.
The researchers say they are “extremely excited” by the results, which indicate that thousands of proteins in a drop of blood can cause many different diseases.
The study, published in Nature Medicine, opens up new possibilities for predicting a wide range of diseases, including rare diseases that can take months or even years to diagnose.
Professor Claudia Langenberg, from Queen Mary University of London, said: “Measuring a protein for a specific reason, such as troponin to diagnose a heart attack, is standard clinical practice.
“We are extremely excited to identify new markers for screening and diagnosis from the thousands of proteins circulating and now measurable in human blood.”
In the study, scientists used advanced techniques to identify a signature of five to twenty of the most important proteins – present in blood plasma – for predicting 67 different diseases.
They studied data from more than 40,000 randomly selected people in the UK.
According to the results, protein signatures can predict the onset of 67 diseases, including blood and bone marrow cancer, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, motor neuron disease and dilated cardiomyopathy – a disease of the heart muscle.
Researchers said protein studies, or protein analysis, could help identify risk factors for even more diseases.
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Dr Julia Carrasco Zanini Sanchez said: “We are extremely excited about the opportunities our protein signatures can offer for earlier detection and ultimately better prognosis for many diseases, including serious diseases.
“We have identified many promising examples. The next step is to select high-priority diseases and evaluate their proteomic prediction in a clinical setting.”
The researchers found that models based on protein prediction were better than models based on clinically recorded information.
The researchers found that predictions based on blood cell counts, cholesterol, kidney function and diabetes tests were not as effective as protein prediction models in most examples.
The test is reminiscent of one offered by Theranos scammer Elizabeth Holmes.
She claimed to have developed a device capable of performing more than 240 tests, ranging from cholesterol levels to complex genetic analyses, with a single blood prick.
It later turned out that this was not the case. Holmes, 40, was sent to prison in May 2023 for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Its release is scheduled for 2032.
