Ground Truths
Shana Kelley: Biosensors to Track Proteins and Inflammation in Our Blood in Real Time
14 Sep 2025
Prof Shana Kelley is the Neena Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University and President of the CZI Chicago Biohub, which brings together life scientists at Northwestern, University of Chicago, and U. Illinois Urbana Champaign. Her lab’s website provides recent publications in the 3 major areas of biomolecular sensors, rare and single cell analysis, and intracellular molecular delivery.You are undoubtedly familiar with wearable biosensors on the wrist and rings, and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), all of which can transmit physiologic data in real time to your smartphone. What is different about Prof Kelley’s work is the ingenious way of continuously tracking any proteins in our blood via a sensor that could function just like CGM in the future (hair thin sensor applied just below the skin and data relayed to your smartphone). A proof-of-concept paper in Science showed how exquisitely sensitive such a sensor worked to track inflammation markers [interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)] in the diabetic rat model. As seen. below, just the injection of insulin evoked inflammation, and introduction of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) did so markedly.This capability opens up the potential for monitoring body-wide inflammation in real time, but also extends to many other conditions such as autoimmune diseases, heart failure (e.g. continuous brain natriuetic peptide monitoring), and neurodegenerative diseases (with specific markers of neuroinflammation). This innovation represents a new dimension in individualized (precision) medicine.In our conversation, Shana takes us through the discovery of these unique bimolecular sensors that have no reagents, and use electricity to shake off the protein from DNA strands. And she maps out the path to clinical trials and commercialization in the next couple of years.Thank you Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Linda Kemp, Lynn L, Pat Mumby PhD, David Hobson, and many others for tuning into my live video with Shana Kelley! Join me for my next live video in the app, along with posts on biomedical news and analysis.***********************************************************************Thanks you for your listening, reading and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this interesting PLEASE share it!That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile.All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don't hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered.Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe
Full Episode
So just a little bit about my perspective before we get rolling. We've had continuous glucose sensors. Everybody's used to them. A lot of people have tried them. We have wearables where they're on the wrist and the ring. But what you have come up with is a whole new world of sensors.
And this is actually pretty extraordinary because of your fusion of biomedical engineering and chemistry expertise, you've come into something of being able to basically real-time continuous monitor sensors any protein in the body. Wow. Okay. So we're back to you. We got everybody on board. We have our audio fixed. Thank goodness.
And maybe you can restart with telling us about how this protein sensor works.
Yeah, well, I really appreciate, Eric, the way you summed it up. It's something we're very excited about too. And you're right that this all started with glucose sensing, right? It used to be if you were a diabetic, you had to go to the pharmacy to get your glucose measured. And then you got a handheld, right? And that really transformed diabetes management.
Now we have continuous glucose monitors that sit on the arm and can read glucose in real time. But at the core of that is a sensor. right, that reads out the glucose concentration.
And what's been very elusive when it comes to kind of all other analytes, especially protein analytes, is how to get that same form factor, you know, how to have an autonomous sensor that can just sit in a fluid in the human body and read out concentrations. And so that's the problem we've been working away on for several years, many years.
And we eventually came up with a sensor that's basically like a molecular motion detector. It sits on the surface of an electrode and it's just kind of it's moving around. We use electric fields to kind of move it in a way that we can monitor. And it turns out that when the sensor binds a protein of interest. That slows it down.
And so we can just watch that motion, do that over time, and quantitate concentrations of proteins in the blood or in the interstitial fluid is usually where we're making our measurements.
Yeah, so it's like a molecular pendulum where you have these strands of DNA that are specifically want to bind to a protein, but it binds so well that you need a little electricity to shake it off. Is that right?
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