“Our goal is to make it simple for family doctors to easily catch liver injury earlier. “Glutathione depletion has been found to strongly correlate with an increased risk of many liver diseases, including drug-induced liver injury, alcohol-related and nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases, liver fibrosis and cirrhosis,” Zheng said. The researchers injected conjugated gold nanoparticles into mice that had been given an excessive dose of acetaminophen (APAP). Within about half an hour, the researchers were able to detect glutathione depletion in a small amount of blood. “A simple blood test shows how much ICG is left on the surface of the gold particles,” Zheng said.