A single drop of blood can identify diseases before any symptoms appear thanks to the new Olink lab located in the Children’s Health Research Institute (CHRI) at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) Victoria Campus. Lucas and Kaitlyn Johnson know how challenging it can be having a newborn undergo daily rounds of blood work. Little Quinn Johnson will be heading home from hospital next week but it’s been a long stay in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Quinn’s due date was July 3, she arrived in this world on March 26 weighing in a just 500 grams. Her dad, Lucas, said there’s no preparing for a premature birth, “Every day you learn something new that you don’t know before and you just gotta trust the people here.” One of the hardest parts was the constant blood draws to track Quinn’s progress. Her mom, Kaitlyn notes that those blood draws would sometimes have to follow with a blood transfusion, “For Quinn, it was hard to actually take blood on her because she was so small. And so trying to minimize the number of attempts at that is great, but also, she has such a little amount of blood in her system.” Kaitlyn notes that Quinn’s tiny veins sometimes required six or seven attempts for a blood draw, “So she does have some battle wounds and battle scars from all those attempts.” This CHRI Olink lab could dramatically reduce those scars for babies in the future. It’s the first paediatric laboratory certified to use Olink technology. Dr. Victor Han is the CHRI’s Scientific Director, “By using one drop of blood and be able to test 5000 proteins. That allows us to look at the whole body and be able to tell us how the baby is progressing.” Han told CTV News, not only will there be fewer jabs, but the diagnostic capabilities are greatly improved, and results are returned almost immediately, “This will allow us to develop new diagnostic tests that will be a lot more specific. And we can dedicate specific treatment for these babies with what we call precision medicine.” The Olink system was purchased with funds from the Children’s Health Foundation. At this time, Olink can only be used for research purposes and could take years before its cleared for use in clinical settings. But Han says, even as a research tool, the Olink system will have significant benefits for the hospital, “This technology is proprietary, but we have developed it here in London to be able for our London researchers to be able to utilize it at a very efficient cost.” He added, “It will also save the hospital significant costs from having to send samples out of country for analysis.” Han stressed the technology won’t be restricted exclusively to research into children’s diseases, “We’re all going to allow many other researchers in adult and childhood diseases to be able to do these studies, and at a much more efficient cost. And this will, you know, put University of Western Ontario and London Health Sciences Research Institute on the map.”
