Inger Lise Gade

Inger Lise Gade says: “The air we exhale is a highly accessible yet unexploited biological sample that can be collected non-invasively. This project aims to revolutionize disease diagnosis and monitoring by harnessing the untapped potential of exhaled breath analysis. Using pulmonary embolism and stroke as examples, this project ultimately seeks to shift the diagnostic paradigm towards non-invasive, point-of-care analysis based on exhaled breath to start already in the pre-hospital setting. The project will for the first time combine proteomic and metabolomic analysis of exhaled breath to advance the understanding of the acute cellular and biological mechanisms in pulmonary embolism and stroke, respectively, thereby aiding identification and validation of novel exhaled biomarkers suitable for point-of-care testing. The specific activities in the project encompass a literature review study on proteomic and metabolomic analysis to establish a protocol for exhaled breath sample collection and omics-analysis. The protocol will be tested in a methodological study before application in subsequent pre-clinical and clinical studies of stroke and pulmonary embolism. Reproducible porcine model of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke variants will be developed. A paired porcine study of stoke will provide optimal conditions for identification of exhaled biomarkers able to discriminate the different types of strokes. Clinical studies of exhaled biomarkers for pulmonary embolism and stroke will validate the identified putative new, exhaled biomarkers and be the cornerstone for futures new, non-invasive exhaled breath tests.”

Inger Lise Gade has a longstanding interest in looking for biomarkers in exhaled breath and is currently doing her specialist training in Internal Medicine at the Department of Hematology, Aalborg University Hospital. She says: “The Clinical Emerging Investigator grant will permit me to combine my clinical and research training and allow me to establish my own research group and take a unique international first-mover position in the cutting-edge research field of exhaled breath.”