Question: what do you do to the muscus???????

Chandrika Nair answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hi, I look at the mucus of Cystic Fibrosis patients because it gives us a clue as to what the lung environment is like. For example, it would be to invasive/dangerous to measure cyanide concentrations in the patient directly, so you ask them to cough up some mucus (technical term is sputum) to measure the cyanide.

I also get some nose cells in the mucus and I look at these under the microscope to see whether their function is being affected by cyanide.