Noninvasive Detection of Cholesterol from Human Sebum

Primary Investigator (PI) Name

Christopher Dockery

Department

CSM - Chemistry and Biochemistry

Abstract

A lot can be told about the human body simply from the natural oil on one's fingerprint. The aim of this study is to look for cholesterol in that oil specifically. Through using Gas-Chromatography (GC) and Mass-Spectroscopy (MS) we hope to gain enough information to isolate the peak for cholesterol. To test for this, it was necessary to extract the fingerprint oil from a microscope slide using dichloromethane (DCM) and then mixed with ethyl acetate and trimethylsilyl chloride (TMS), the derivatizing agent, to turn it into a form easily seen in GC-MS. After doing so, we were able to identify a strong peak at approximately 30 minutes, which, after comparing against the NIST mass-spec library, we were able to identify our target molecule. Finding and identifying the link between cholesterol and the oil on the skin would be one of the first steps in creating a minimally invasive cholesterol test.

Disciplines

Analytical Chemistry

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Noninvasive Detection of Cholesterol from Human Sebum

A lot can be told about the human body simply from the natural oil on one's fingerprint. The aim of this study is to look for cholesterol in that oil specifically. Through using Gas-Chromatography (GC) and Mass-Spectroscopy (MS) we hope to gain enough information to isolate the peak for cholesterol. To test for this, it was necessary to extract the fingerprint oil from a microscope slide using dichloromethane (DCM) and then mixed with ethyl acetate and trimethylsilyl chloride (TMS), the derivatizing agent, to turn it into a form easily seen in GC-MS. After doing so, we were able to identify a strong peak at approximately 30 minutes, which, after comparing against the NIST mass-spec library, we were able to identify our target molecule. Finding and identifying the link between cholesterol and the oil on the skin would be one of the first steps in creating a minimally invasive cholesterol test.