Influenza could soon be diagnosed using gum from Germany

By Stephen Beech

Flu could quickly be diagnosed at home by simply chewing gum, suggests a new study.

With flu season fast approaching, scientists say the taste-based influenza test would remove the need for taking nasal swabs from patients.

German scientists have designed a new molecular sensor to release a thyme flavor when it encounters the flu virus.

They plan to incorporate a low-tech sensor into gum or lozenges to increase at-home screenings and potentially prevent pre-symptomatic transmission of the disease.

Study leader Professor Lorenz Meinel says staying at home is critical to preventing the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza.

But people with the flu are contagious before they develop symptoms.

Current ways of diagnosing flu - such as nasal swab-based PCR tests - are accurate, but they are slow and expensive.

At-home lateral flow tests, similar to those used to test for COVID-19, are convenient and generally low-cost, but don’t catch pre-symptomatic infections.

Meinel and his colleagues address those flu detection shortcomings "by switching away from complex detectors and machinery and toward a detector that is available for anyone, everywhere and anytime: the tongue.”

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The team developed a molecular sensor that releases a flavor that human tongues can detect - thymol, found in the spice thyme.

Meinel says the sensor is based on a substrate of the influenza virus glycoprotein called neuraminidase.

He said: "Influenza viruses use neuraminidase to break certain bonds on the host’s cell to infect it."

The research team synthesized a neuraminidase substrate and attached a thymol molecule to it.

Meinel, of Wurzburg University, said: "Thymol registers as a strong herbal taste on the tongue.

"Theoretically, when the synthesised sensor is in the mouth of someone infected with the flu, the viruses lob off the thymol molecules, and their flavor is detected by the tongue."

After developing their molecular sensor, the research team conducted lab tests with it.

The findings, published in the journal ACS Central Science, showed that, in vials with human saliva from people diagnosed with the flu, the sensor released free thymol within 30 minutes.

When they tested the sensor on human and mouse cells, it didn’t change the cells’ functioning.

Meinel and team hope to start human clinical trials in two years to confirm the sensor’s thymol taste sensations in people with pre- and post-symptomatic influenza.

He added: "If incorporated into chewing gums or lozenges, this sensor could be a rapid and accessible first-line screening tool to help protect people in high-risk environments."