Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 9, 2025

Developing a Salivary Antibody Multiplex Immunoassay to Measure Human Exposure to Environmental Pathogens
Published on: September 12, 2016
Quantitative assessment of multiple pathogen exposure and immune dynamics at scale
Lusheng Song1, Femina Rauf1, Ching-Wen Hou1
1Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University , Tempe, Arizona, USA.
Importance:
Serology reveals exposure to pathogens, as well as the state of autoimmune and other clinical conditions. It is used to evaluate individuals and their histories and as a public health tool to track epidemics. Employing a variety of formats, studies nearly always perform serology by testing response to only one or a few antigens. However, clinical outcomes of new infections also depend on which previous infections may have occurred. We developed a high-throughput serology method that evaluates responses to hundreds of antigens simultaneously. It can be used to evaluate thousands of samples at a time and provide a quantitative readout. This tool will enable doctors to monitor which pathogens an individual has been exposed to and how that changes in the future. Moreover, public health officials could track populations and look for infectious trends among large populations. Testing many potential antigens at a time may also aid in vaccine development.

