Alexander Star does not have asthma, nor does he know anyone who does. But he has developed… Alexander Star does not have asthma, nor does he know anyone who does. But he has developed a device that could possibly help asthmatics detect attacks before they even occur.

Star, a Pitt chemistry professor, has developed a hand-held, carbon nano-tube sensor that measures the levels of nitric oxide – gases associated with asthma attacks – in a person’s breath possibly weeks before he has an asthma attack.

By detecting these high levels before an attack occurs, Star said that people might be able to take the necessary medication to prevent it.

“It is still a long road,” Star said in an e-mail. “Our tests in simulated human breath conditions prove in principle that carbon nanotube sensors can be used to detect nitric oxide for asthma treatment. However, further sensor development is required to take this invention to the market.”

Currently, physicians use nitric oxide readings to diagnose asthma, but doing so requires expensive machines that are usually only available in medical facilities, Star said. Although he said they were bulky and expensive, the existing tests for nitric oxide are covered by medical insurance.

Even if all the tests prove his product works, it will still need approval from the Food and Drug Administration before it can be made commercially available.

Cathy Vatari, the nurse manager for the Asthma Research Center at Pitt, described asthma as a disease that causes a person’s airways to become inflamed. These enlarged airways can also become clogged with mucus, blocking the flow of air and making it hard to breathe.

There are four different types of asthma: mild intermittent, mild persistent, moderate persistent and severe persistent asthma. Vatari said that people diagnosed with the latter two forms of asthma routinely take inhaled Corticosteriods, which help decrease the airway’s inflammation, whereas people with the first two forms usually just have a rescue inhaler.

“The idea [now] is if you cut down inflamed airways with steroids you can prevent attacks,” Vatari said.

Star has been working on carbon nanotube sensors for the past seven years, and his research group at Pitt has been working on this specific project for 20 months. One of his graduate students was even hired by a startup medical company, Nanomix Inc., which wants to further develop the sensor.

Star presented his research at the American Chemical Society’s 234th National Meeting on Aug. 19-23 in Boston.

Undoubtedly, Star’s product will undergo much more testing. But if everything goes according to plan, better prevention of asthma attacks could just be one breath away.