Assay could help eliminate invasive eye biopsies

Overcomes difficulties in monitoring tiny quantities of analytes from tears to assess efficacy of eye treatments

Scientists at Aberdeen University are hoping that the BD Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) assay from BD Biosciences will one day make invasive eye biopsies a thing of the past.

Janet Liversidge, lecturer in immunology at the Department of Ophthalmology, explained: "We prefer to treat eye conditions with topical drops rather than strong systemic drugs and a very easy and non-invasive way of monitoring the efficacy of this treatment is by analysing tears." "The small amount of analyte we work with, typically about 10µl, used to be a challenge but now we can easily analyse these tiny amounts with the BD CBA assay and have greatly economised on time and materials, as well as improving the quality of the resulting data." "We now use the assay for all kinds of applications, including assessing the effect of contact lenses on the eye, analysing rare samples from the aqueous and vitreous humours and monitoring the progress of glaucoma therapy," concluded Liversidge.

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