Paper-based test could diagnose Lyme disease at early stages

After a day hiking in the forest, the last thing a person wants to discover is a tick burrowing into their skin. Days after plucking off the bloodsucking insect, the hiker might develop a rash resembling a bull’s-eye, a tell-tale sign of Lyme disease. Yet not everybody who contracts Lyme disease gets the rash. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have devised a blood test that quickly and sensitively diagnoses the disease at early stages. About 300,000 cases of Lyme disease, which is caused by the tick-borne bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early symptoms of the disease include the characteristic skin rash, along with fever, headache, chills and muscle aches. If not treated promptly with antibiotics, more severe symptoms, such as facial palsy, nerve pain, heart palpitations and arthritis, can occur. However, 10–20% of infected people do not develop the rash, and existing diagnostic blood tests are slow, costly or insensitive at early stages, when treatment is most effective. Aydogan Ozcan and colleagues wanted to develop a fast, easy-to-use and inexpensive blood test to diagnose Lyme disease soon after infection.

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