50 years after Sputnik: space technology to diagnose tuberculosis

Development grant

Technology developed for the Beagle 2 and Rosetta space missions could soon be harnessed to provide a cost-effective, rapid and accurate tool for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) after the UK charity the Wellcome Trust awarded scientists at the Open University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) a £1.34 million Strategic Translation Award to develop a mass spectrometer for detecting TB in developing countries with limited laboratory diagnostic facilities.

TB, caused by the M. tuberculosis bacterium, kills two million people every year, primarily in the developing world. Diagnosing TB relies mainly on the use of smear microscopy of sputum samples, a very labour-intensive process with low sensitivity.

Now, researchers led by Geraint Morgan and Colin Pillinger at the Open University together with Liz Corbett from the LSHTM aim to develop a portable mass spectrometer for diagnosing the disease. The technology has been developed by the team behind the experiment that was to search for life on Mars during the failed Beagle 2 mission and the Ptolemy instrument currently on-board the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft.

“Smear microscopy is not a very accurate way of diagnosing TB and only detects a third of all positive cases,” says Morgan. “That means seven out of ten patients will effectively need to get worse before they can be diagnosed and treated.”

Rosetta launched in 2004, and if all goes to plan it will be the first spacecraft ever to conduct scientific measurements on the surface of a comet. The Rosetta Lander includes a shoe-box sized gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS), known as Ptolemy, which will analyse small pieces of the comet’s nucleus to identify what it is made from and answer questions about the make up of the early solar system and whether comets may have been the source of water and the building blocks of life on earth.

Morgan believes it is possible to adapt Rosetta’s technology to develop a GC-MS capable of detecting TB in sputum with greater sensitivity than smear microscopy and faster than the alternative culture methods. The process could be automated, meaning that skilled laboratory technicians would not be needed, and would not need to be carried out in a special laboratory, making the technology more widely available in the places that need it most.

“Chemicals have their own unique signature,” says Morgan. “The bacterium that causes TB has a special coating and it is the pattern of chemicals in this coating that the mass spectrometer will be 'searching' for.”

Morgan will work with clinical partners from the LSHTM and Conrad Bessant from the Bioinformatics Group at Cranfield University to optimise and validate the technique. In the second year of its development, the device will be trialled in the field, in Zimbabwe.

The research was welcomed by Ted Bianco, Director of Technology Transfer at the Wellcome Trust. "Combining expertise in mass spectrometry with the experience of doctors working in Southern Africa is a potent mix of talent. If you can build instruments rugged enough to look for life elsewhere in the solar system, you should be able to crack the problem of detecting TB bacteria in the lung of a patient.”

The Wellcome Trust funded development of the original mass spectrometer on the Beagle 2 mission to Mars. Pillinger, the driving force behind the mission said, “The Wellcome Trust had the foresight to see that the miniaturisation process needed to develop a mass spectrometer capable of fitting onto a spacecraft could have applications far closer to home,” says Pillinger. “It is very rewarding to see such vision paying off in clinical research.”