PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Landmark test for coeliac disease promises to take away the pain of diagnosis

2025-06-09
(Press-News.org)

Imagine having to eat something that makes you sick – just to see what’s making you ill in the first place. 

That’s the harsh reality of current diagnostic tests for coeliac disease, which require people to eat large amounts of gluten for weeks in order to get an accurate diagnosis.

But this painful process could soon be a thing of the past, with WEHI researchers and industry partner Novoviah Pharmaceuticals developing a world-first blood test that can identify the condition in patients – even when they’re on gluten-free diets.

 

At a glance

New clinical research published in the high-impact journal Gastroenterology shows a game-changer blood test for gluten-specific T cells can detect coeliac disease, even when no gluten has been eaten.

Reliable diagnosis for coeliac disease is currently possible only when gluten is consumed regularly. A gastroscopy and biopsy are also usually required to identify intestinal injury.

The new test could boost rates of diagnosis, identify patients at risk of severe reactions to gluten and detect silent coeliac disease in people who are asymptomatic. 


Coeliac disease is one of the most common autoimmune illnesses in Australia, caused by an immune reaction to the gluten protein found in wheat, rye and barley. More than 350,000 Australians currently live with the condition. 

While early diagnosis is critical to minimising long-term complications of the disease, up to 80% of cases around the world remain undiagnosed. 

The diagnostic process can be confusing for patients and non-specialist doctors, as the reduction in symptoms from a gluten free diet is not always a marker of coeliac disease. 

Current coeliac testing methods - serology blood tests or gastroscopy with intestinal biopsy - do not work reliably for those on a gluten free diet, and require regular gluten consumption to be effective. As a result, many people are deterred from seeking a definite diagnosis because they do not want to consume gluten and be sick.  

Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din, Head of WEHI’s Coeliac Research Laboratory and a gastroenterologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said every approved method to diagnose coeliac 
disease currently requires people to eat gluten. 

“There are likely millions of people around the world living with undiagnosed coeliac disease simply because the path to diagnosis is difficult, and at times, debilitating,” Assoc Prof Tye-Din said.

“This new test promises to simplify and speed up accurate diagnosis, while also avoiding the suffering that comes with eating gluten for extended periods to reactivate coeliac disease.

“By eliminating the need for a gluten challenge, we’re addressing  one of the biggest deterrents in current diagnostic practices.

“This test could be a game-changer, sparing thousands of people the emotional and physical toll of returning to gluten. It's a major step towards faster, safer diagnosis.”
 

Critical signalling 

In 2019, WEHI researchers, working with Dr Robert Anderson (now with Brisbane-based Novoviah Pharmaceuticals), made the unexpected discovery that the immune marker interleukin 2 (IL-2) spiked in the bloodstream of people with coeliac disease shortly after they ate gluten.

But could this critical signal still appear, even if no gluten had been consumed?

Building on a promising pilot study in 2021 and using a new clinical diagnostic system developed with Novoviah Pharmaceuticals, the research team set out to test the performance and understand the 
science of an “in-tube” gluten challenge blood test.

In their new study, published in Gastroenterology, the researchers used blood samples from 181 volunteers recruited via the Royal Melbourne Hospital. 

This included 75 people with treated coeliac disease (on a gluten free diet), 13 with active, untreated coeliac disease, 32 people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity and 61 healthy controls.

Participant blood samples were then mixed with gluten in a test tube for a day to see if the IL-2 signal appeared.  

PhD researcher Olivia Moscatelli, who was diagnosed with coeliac disease at 18, said the team was thrilled to find the test could detect the condition with up to 90% sensitivity and 97% specificity – even in patients following a strict gluten free diet.

“This breakthrough is deeply personal as it could spare others from the gruelling diagnostic process I had to endure. Knowing I’ve played a role in this achievement is a powerful, full-circle moment,” Moscatelli said.

As seen in the previous study, the IL-2 signal only increased in the volunteers with coeliac disease, demonstrating the immune response to gluten can be detected in a tube, without a gluten challenge.

“This represents a promising new tool to support diagnosis, especially for people who can’t be diagnosed with the currently available methods.

“We also found the strength of the IL-2 signal correlated with the severity of a patient’s symptoms, allowing us to predict how severely a person with coeliac disease might react to gluten, without them 
actually having to eat it,” Moscatelli said. 

“The test’s performance in individuals with other autoimmune conditions in addition to coeliac disease, such as type 1 diabetes or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, is also unmatched.”

“Some diagnostic tests give false positives in the presence of other autoimmune diseases, but this was not an issue for this test.” 

“This is largely because the technology we use is highly sensitive and can detect the IL-2 signal at exceptionally low levels. It’s like the equivalent of being able to detect a single grain of sand in a 
swimming pool.”

While the ultrasensitive cytokine testing technology used for this study isn't currently utilised in pathology labs, researchers hope this will change in the future, which would allow this blood test to be widely used by healthcare professionals.

Dr Robert Anderson, co-founder of Novoviah Pharmaceuticals, current President of the International Society for the Study of Coeliac Disease and a gastroenterologist at Mackay Base Hospital, said the 
landmark study reflected the WEHI team’s global role as leaders in translational immunology. 

Dr Anderson said: “I have been delighted to have a close and exceptionally productive collaboration with Professor Tye-Din that launched innovative therapies and now diagnostics harnessing the gluten-specific T cells we obsessively characterised in studies over the past 25 years.”

The WEHI team is now collaborating with Novoviah Pharmaceuticals to confirm the test’s accuracy across diverse populations and accrue critically needed real-world data. 

The research is supported by Coeliac Australia, Novoviah Pharmaceuticals (who provided the proprietary test for this study), Beck Family Foundation, Butterfield Family, the Veith Foundation and the crucial contributions of the study participants. 

The study, “Blood-based T Cell Diagnosis of Celiac Disease”, is published in Gastroenterology (DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2025.05.022).
 

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

A recipe for success: beefing up the taste of cultured meat with amino acids

2025-06-09
Tokyo, Japan – Across the world the demand for meat is growing, despite associated environmental and animal welfare costs. Although lab-grown – or cultured – meat could be part of the answer, scientists have yet to perfect one crucial detail: the taste. In an article to be published in Food Chemistry, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have measured and found a way to control the key amino acids responsible for flavor in a step toward making cultured meat taste just like the real thing. The push toward cultured meat has been adopted because conventional production is not a sustainable solution for ...

Protecting peppers from devastating viral diseases through gene pyramiding

2025-06-09
Even with today’s advanced agricultural technologies, plant diseases can still be extremely devastating to crops, causing billions of dollars in losses worldwide every year. Begomoviruses represent a prominent example of this threat—these whitefly-transmitted pathogens cause yellow leaf curl disease in peppers and can destroy up to 100% of fruit yield in affected fields across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Breeding crops that are resistant to begomoviruses has long been the most effective and widely used strategy for preventing such massive losses. Though usually effective, this approach has serious limitations, especially when dealing with mixed infections. Scientists ...

Lizards of Madagascar

2025-06-09
Kyoto, Japan -- After the island of Madagascar drifted away from India 88 million years ago, isolating it from all other landmasses, its flora and fauna evolved in seclusion. As these transformed into plants and animals completely unique to their island, Madagascar became a biodiversity hotspot unlike anywhere else on Earth. An important facet of this biodiversity is an ecological process called endozoochory, which is when animals eat plant seeds and then poop them out somewhere else, aiding in the spread of the plants. Most research on endozoochory has focused on the roles of ...

Beyond the brain: how BCIs are rewiring medicine and redefining humanity

2025-06-09
Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology is opening an unprecedented chapter in human-machine integration by establishing direct communication between the brain and external devices. Once a science fiction concept, BCI is now reshaping the landscape of neurosurgery and neurorehabilitation. By decoding brain signals to restore lost motor, sensory, and language functions, BCIs offer new hope for individuals affected by paralysis, aphasia, and neurodegenerative diseases. But their impact extends well beyond the clinic—BCIs are poised to influence cognition, ethical governance, and national security. As this disruptive technology matures, ...

Fossilized dinosaur gut shows that sauropods barely chewed

2025-06-09
Plant fossils found in the abdomen of a sauropod support the long-standing hypothesis that these dinosaurs were herbivores, finds a study publishing June 9 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. The dinosaur, which was alive an estimated 94 to 101 million years ago, ate a variety of plants and relied almost entirely on its gut microbes for digestion.   “No genuine sauropod gut contents had ever been found anywhere before, despite sauropods being known from fossils found on every continent and despite the group ...

School dental treatments stop kids’ tooth decay in its tracks

2025-06-09
Two topical treatments applied to kids’ cavities can stop the majority of them from progressing for years, according to a study led by NYU College of Dentistry and published in JAMA Network Open. Treating more than 10,000 cavities in New York City elementary school students, the researchers found that both atraumatic restorations (ART) and silver diamine fluoride (SDF) kept most dental decay from worsening, supporting the use of non-surgical approaches for managing cavities. Children miss an estimated 34 million hours of school each year due to emergency dental care. Bringing cavity prevention programs to schools can improve kids’ oral health and stave ...

How high is your dementia risk? It might depend on where you live

2025-06-09
In one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its kind, a research team led at UC San Francisco has identified the regions where dementia occurs most often.  What They Discovered Using the Mid-Atlantic* as the basis for comparison, researchers found that dementia rates were 25% higher in the Southeast.** The Northwest*** and Rocky Mountains**** were both 23% higher, and the South***** was 18% higher. The Southwest, which includes California, was 13% higher; while the Northeast, which includes New York, was 7% higher.  These differences remained when researchers accounted for factors like age, ...

Firearm laws and pediatric mortality in the US

2025-06-09
About The Study: The results of this study demonstrate that permissive firearm laws contributed to thousands of excess firearm deaths among children living in states with permissive policies. Future work should focus on determining which types of laws conferred the most harm and which offered the most protection.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, email jsfaust@bwh.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1363) Editor’s ...

Use of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at national, regional, and state levels

2025-06-09
About The Study: The findings of this cross-sectional study suggest that although 988 has been contacted more than 16 million times since its launch in July 2022, there remains opportunity to increase 988 use. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jonathan Purtle, DrPH, MSc, email jonathan.purtle@nyu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14323) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

Location of firearm suicides in the United States

2025-06-09
About The Study: This study found that nearly 1 in 5 firearm suicides in the U.S. occurred outside the home, highlighting the potential to enhance intervention strategies by extending them to broader community settings. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Camerin A. Rencken, PhD, ScM, email crencken@uw.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14423) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A new method to build more energy-efficient memory devices for a sustainable data future

Freely levitating rotor spins out ultraprecise sensors for classical and quantum physics

‘Chinese lantern’ structure shifts into more than a dozen shapes for various applications

Towards light-controlled electronic components

Tiny architects, titanic climate impact: scientists call for October 10 to become International Coccolithophore Day

Stress sensitivity makes suicidal thoughts more extreme and persistent among the university population

Lessons from Ascension’s shark troubles could help boost conservation

Fire provides long-lasting benefits to bird populations in Sierra Nevada National Parks

Menstrual cycle affects women’s reaction time but not as much as being active

Housing associations more effective than government in supporting unemployed in deprived areas

Biochar helps composting go greener by cutting greenhouse gas emissions

Ulrich named president-elect of the AACI

Multitasking makes you more likely to fall for phishing emails

Researchers solve model that can improve sustainable design, groundwater management, nuclear waste storage, and more

Parched soils can spark hot drought a nation away

Uncovering new physics in metals manufacturing

Sped-up evolution may help bacteria take hold in gut microbiome, UCLA-led research team finds

The dose-dependent effects of dissolved biochar on C. elegans: Insights into the physiological and transcriptomic responses

New research reveals genetic link to most common pediatric bone cancer

Research conducted during 2024 eclipse reveals importance of light on bird behavior

Why does female fertility decline so fast? The key is the ovary

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds

Europe’s largest bats hunt and eat migrating birds on the wing, high in the sky

China’s emerging AI regulation could foster an open and safe future for AI

The secret to naked mole-rat’s longevity: Enhanced DNA repair

Acidic tumor environment promotes survival and growth of cancer cells

New biosensor tracks plants’ immune hormone in real time

New study finds gaps in REDD+ forest carbon offsets with most overstating climate impacts

Mystery solved: How Europe’s largest bat catches and eats passerines mid-air

Pan-disease atlas maps molecular fingerprints of health, disease and aging

[Press-News.org] Landmark test for coeliac disease promises to take away the pain of diagnosis