Nanostructured Materials for the Detection of Markers of Asthma and Other Correlated Inflammatory Diseases

A correct diagnosis of asthma is essential for drug therapy. Currently, diagnosis is made through evaluation of symptoms and pulmonary function testing. Targeted tests, designed to detect markers of chronic inflammation that characterizes asthma, are very few. More recently, new biomarkers have emerged by the ‘omics approach, but the measure of such biomarkers requires sophisticated large-scale analytical methods to quantify gene expression transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics), lipids (lipidomics) and metabolites (metabolomics) in the lungs, blood or urine. As a consequence, it would be attractive to provide a more simple and reliable method of detecting markers predictive of a level of asthma exacerbation or control.