南京拓服工坊-抗击疫情，Vocus在行动 --人体呼出气体分析进行快速新冠病毒早期筛查

法国IRCELYON和ISA研究所的科研人员在位于里昂的Croix Rousse医院内正利用Vocus PTR-TOF进行疑似新冠患者的呼出气体分析，以期能实现新冠病毒快速早期筛查。

A team of researchers from IRCELYON and ISA (CNRS/University of Lyon, France) has deployed the Vocus PTR-TOF at the Croix Rousse Hospital in Lyon, France to study breath analysis for COVID-19 detection.

人体呼出气体分析是近年来的科研热点，因其中富含的VOCs可能给临床诊断带来革命性的改变。呼出气体含有的内源性VOCs跟人体的新陈代谢和生理状况都息息相关；同时，食物消化和药物代谢物也会在呼出气体中留下特定的印记。因其无损，简易性和快速分析等优点，呼出气体组分研究被认为具有潜力成为病情诊断，药物动力学和个性化医疗的重要辅助手段。但目标特征物的低浓度（一般ppt到ppb），样品的高湿度和复杂基体效应也对采用的分析化学方法提出了很高的硬性要求。

The analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in human breath holds valuable clinical potential and has been the subject of many research studies. The VOCs exhaled in breath directly reflect human metabolism and can therefore indicate a person’s pathophysiological status. Owing to its simplicity, speed, and non-invasive nature, breath analysis has emerged as an extremely promising field for the early diagnosis and/or monitoring of numerous diseases. However, the analysis poses many analytical challenges including the extremely low concentration of targeted biomarkers (typically in the range of parts-per-trillion to parts-per-billion), high sample humidity, and matrix effects.

*Feature Image: Scientists and doctors from CNRS/University of Lyon, France study COVID-19 biomarkers from patient breath using Vocus PTR-TOF

Vocus PTR-TOF通过呼出气体进行新冠病毒患者早期诊断

Breath Analysis for COVID-19 Detection with Vocus PTR-TOF

TOFWERK Vocus PTR-TOF是一款具有极高灵敏度的在线VOCs检测仪，可以同时分析多至上百种挥发性有机物。无需任何样品预处理，该仪器可对气态样品进行实时检测并给出分析结果。为配合呼出气体分析，Vocus PTR-TOF搭配了可加热控温的进样管，同时配备了一次性的止回嘴咬，防止可能的相互感染和污染。可移动设计让这台Vocus PTR-TOF在急救病房和诊断分流点等地点自由部署并进行投入测量。全谱捕捉上百种VOCs的分析能力大大提升了识别与新冠病毒或者其他病例相关的二次代谢物和特征物种的可能性。相对于基于棉签采样，耗时长达几十分钟的现行分析方法，Vocus PTR-TOF具有在一分钟内做到筛查一个乃至更多人的巨大应用潜力！

TOFWERK’s Vocus PTR-TOF is a sensitive, online VOC analyzer that can simultaneously detect hundreds of volatile chemicals at parts-per-trillion levels. Gaseous samples are analyzed directly without any required preparation, and results are reported in real time at extremely high rates. For breath analysis, the Vocus PTR-TOF is equipped with a heated breath inlet with a disposable non-rebreathing mouthpiece to avoid the risk of disease transmission between potentially infectious patients. The portable system can be deployed to nearly any site, including clinical exam rooms or screening checkpoints. The ability to simultaneously quantify hundreds of trace VOCs opens the door to powerful breath fingerprinting, whereby COVID-19 or other infections could be detected based on unique metabolic and VOC markers. In contrast to swab-based COVID diagnostic methods that take minutes to hours per sample to collect and analyze, the real-time nature of the Vocus PTR-TOF suggests the potential to screen 1 or more people per minute.

Vocus PTR-TOF with breath inlet at Croix Rousse hospital, Lyon, France

Breath Analysis-Based Disease Biomarkers of COVID-19

呼出气体中新冠病毒标志物筛查

The detection of COVID-19-specific breath biomarkers has great promise for rapid, reliable, and non-invasive diagnosis. With this goal, a research team from IRCELYON and ISA (CNRS/University of Lyon, France) has deployed a Vocus PTR-TOF at the Croix Rousse Hospital in Lyon, France. In collaboration with the Center for Research in Infectious Diseases (CIRI, INSERM, University of Lyon) and two units of the Croix Rousse hospital (intensive care unit and infectious disease unit) they are sampling breath of a wide variety of COVID-19 positive and negative patients to identify biomarkers of this highly infectious virus. The funds for this study have been provided by the Region Auvergne Rhones-Alpes and the French state.

科研工作者们相信在人体呼出气体中存在跟新冠病毒或者因其引起的肺部感染密切相关的生物标记物，这将大大加速疑似患者和无症状患者的排查工作，为疫情控制提供了更多的时间和手段。基于这个目标，法国IRCELYON和ISA研究所的科研人员在位于里昂的Croix Rousse医院内部署了一台Vocus PTR-TOF。在里昂大学传染病研究中心（CIRI，INSERM）和Croix Rousse医院的ICU和传染病部门的紧密合作下，研究人员正在分析诊断为阳性和阴性的志愿者们的呼出气体，数据分析也在同步进行中。该项目基金由Auvergne Rhones-Alpes地区政府和法国政府共同提供。