Today (June 8) is #WearPurpleforJIA day, and ANCON Medical is helping to raise awareness about juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and its effects on children with the condition.
JIA is an autoimmune disease of unknown origin (idiopathic), in which the immune system gets confused and attacks healthy joint tissue, causing inflammation.
#WearPurpleforJIA is a campaign started in 2015 by two JIA mothers in the United Kingdom and intended to raise awareness and money for children and young people with the disease. In the UK alone, there are an estimated 12,000 children and young people with JIA.
ANCON Medical started supporting the #WearPurpleforJIA campaign when Thomas, the son of ANCON Medical’s CEO Wesley Baker, was diagnosed with JIA in 2017. Since then, Thomas has been bravely fighting his disease every day.
Because early diagnosis is critical to limit the progression of JIA, ANCON developed a non-invasive, simple-to-use, affordable Nanoparticle Biomarker Tagging (NBT), based on the company’s advanced disease screening technology.
The NBT technology works by detecting specific biomarkers in molecules present in exhaled breath — DNA-protein controlled volatile organic compounds (VOC) specific to diseases. So far, breath-specific biomarkers have been found for more than 400 diseases.
By combining machine-learning software with the NBT technology, the device can track specific signs for diseases, so that a diagnosis can be made earlier.
The NBT device, to date, is the most sensitive device for detecting disease biomarkers. It can detect signs of disease at concentrations as low as one ion in 10,000 cubic centimeters.
“The NBT device is very versatile and promises to change the lives of children as yet undiagnosed with this painful disease in a non-invasive and much less intimidating way than current testing procedures. Although unfortunately too late for Thomas’s JIA diagnosis, it can also be used to screen for diseases such as cancer and potentially be reassigned to test for a range of other diseases when needed,” Baker, a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, said in a press release.
For more information about how to get involved in this initiative — if not this year, perhaps in 2019 — visit this link.