Scientists at Rutgers Health have discovered that a simple blood test could diagnose asthma and determine its severity, a breakthrough that could transform how the disease is identified and monitored. The paper, which will appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, found that patients with asthma have dramatically elevated levels of a molecule called cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in their blood – sometimes up to 1,000 times higher than in people without asthma. “What we discovered is a specific transporter, a protein on the membrane of airway smooth muscle cells, allows cAMP to leak into the blood,” says Reynold Panettieri, one of the study’s senior authors and vice chancellor for Translational Medicine and Science at Rutgers University. “For decades, we believed that an enzyme called phosphodiesterase was the critical factor in decreasing cAMP. We now refute that and say this transporter simply leaks it out.” To read the full story.