It’s said that eyes are windows to the soul, but did ever consider that the face grease left on mobile phones is also a window into your life? By studying samples of the molecules taken from mobile phones, scientists from the University Of California San Diego School Of Medicine were able to construct accurate lifestyle profiles of each owner’s phone, revealing their food preference and medications. The scientists found traces of everything, including caffeine, anti-depressants, and mosquito repellant.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , tested 500 samples taken from 40 adults’ mobile phones and hands and compared them against the database, producing a “lifestyle profile” of each phone user. The results could have some applications in forensic sciences: criminal profiling, airport screening, medication adherence monitoring, clinical trial participant stratification and environmental exposure studies.
“By analyzing the molecules they left behind on their phones, we could tell if a person is likely to be female, uses high-end cosmetics, dyes her hair, drinks coffee, prefers beer over wine, likes spicy food, is being treated for depression, wears sunscreen and bug spray – and therefore likely to spend a lot of time outdoors – all kinds of things,” said Dr. Amina Bouslimani, an assistant project scientists on the study.
Earlier research conducted in 2015 examined molecules and microbes found at hundreds of locations on the bodies of two healthy adult volunteers and discovered that hygiene and beauty products were the most abundant, despite the subjects not bathing in three days. Realizing the wealth of information found on the exterior of the body, Dorrestein sought to analyze how much of this information is left behind on objects we most commonly come into contact with: mobile phones.
The latest study collected 500 samples by swabbing four spots on each person’s mobile phone and eight spots on each person’s right hand, then applying a technique called mass spectrometry to detect molecules. Scientists identified particles by comparing them to reference structures in the GNPS database, a crowdsourced mass spectrometry knowledge repository.
Perhaps most startling of all was that traces of mosquito repellents and sunscreen remained on people’s phones even months after the owner had used them. Other commonly found substances included medications like anti-inflammatory and antifungal skin creams, hair loss treatments, anti-depressants and eye drops. Food molecules included citrus, caffeine, herbs and spices.
“All of these chemical traces on our bodies can transfer to objects,” said Pieter Dorrestein, senior author of the study. “So we realized we could probably come up with a profile of a person's lifestyle based on chemistries we can detect on objects they frequently use.”
Researchers then created a personalize lifestyle “read-out” for each phone using the resulting information. The readouts are not an exact one-to-one match like a fingerprint. Developing a precise molecule database on the same scale as the fingerprint database requires a collaborative effort from multiple labs.
Dorrestein and Bouslimani’s upcoming study increases the sample size to 80 people and tests samples from other personal objects like wallets and keys.
Looking forward, accurate trace molecule read-outs could serve multiple purposes in both medical and environmental studies. For example, patients participating in a clinical trial could be divided into subgroups based on how they metabolize the medication under investigation, as revealed by skin metabolites, assigning medication only to those who can metabolize it appropriately. Skin read-outs may also provide important information about a person’s exposure to environmental pollutants and chemical hazards, particularly for those working in high-risk areas.
Source: Eurekalert.org
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