Blood Raman spectroscopy in kidney transplant recipients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Raman spectroscopy of plasma and serum of renal transplant recipients to understand variability and unique signatures.
IRAS ID
335827
Contact name
Donna Arnold
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 0 days
Research summary
There has been rapid growth in the use of Raman spectroscopy for the analysis of blood in both health and forensic science. Extensive work exists looking at biomarkers in blood samples for the detection of disease. For example, Paraskevaidi et al., reported highly specific detection of ovarian cancer in blood plasma samples using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with silver nanoparticles. Despite growing interest the full utility of Raman spectroscopy remains underexplored. For example, few studies have looked at identifying biomarkers associated with either acute kidney injury (AKI) or for the non-invasive detection of organ rejection in post-transplant patients.
This pilot study will examine serum and plasma samples from renal transplant recipients to find some preliminary data in relation to variability of signals and their association with clinical indices such as kidney transplant function and drug levels.
We will recruit renal transplant recipients over a period of 6 months. We will ask 10 people who have received a kidney transplant over a year ago and 10 who have recently received a kidney transplant (in last 2 weeks).
We will recruit participants from the kidney transplant clinic at East Kent Hospitals, the department follows 700 people with functioning kidney transplants and 50-70 new transplant recipients annually. People are routinely seen in clinic once or twice a week for the first 6 months post-transplant thereafter fortnightly until one year post transplantation. We aim to collect 4 blood samples from new transplant recipients and 2 samples from longstanding patients. People will be asked to be enrol in the study for a maximum of 3 months.
We will perform all routine investigations according to normal clinical practise, people will asked to provide an additional 4ml blood on each occasion. We will correlate findings of Raman spectroscopy with clinical characteristics, routinely collected at clinic visits.
REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/PR/0444
Date of REC Opinion
28 May 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion