Israeli researcher receives EU grant for development of 'electronic nose'

An Israeli researcher has been awarded a grant of € 1.73 million by the EU under its Marie Curie Excellence programme for the development of an 'electronic nose' that can sniff out cancer.

Dr Hossam Haick of the Israel Institute of Technology received the award as part of the EU's efforts to strengthen and encourage young promising scientists.

Dr Haick is 31 years old and also the recipient of the largest grant ever received from the EU by an Israeli researcher. He will be working on artificial olfactory systems or 'electronic noses' aimed at sniffing out and diagnosing cancer at the earliest possible stage before it spreads.

"Realisation of the research goal will enable creating an instrument based on nanometre-sized sensors that can diagnose different cancers and even determine at what stage the disease is," explains Dr Haick. "The diagnosis can be carried out at a very early stage even before the tumour has begun to spread. Thus, treatment will be immediate and will destroy the disease at its inception."

Electronic noses are one example of a growing research area called biomimetics, or biomimicry, which involves human-made applications patterned on natural phenomena.

As an odour is composed of molecules, each of which has a specific size and shape, each of these molecules has a receptor of a corresponding size and shape in the human nose. When a specific receptor receives a molecule, it sends a signal to the brain and the brain identifies the smell associated with that particular molecule. Electronic noses based on the biological model work in a similar manner, substituting sensors for the receptors, and transmitting the signal to a program for processing, instead of the brain.

Dr Haick intends to develop sensor arrays made of nanomaterials, understanding the fundamental chemical, physical, and electrical properties of these nanomaterials and the signal mechanism of these sensors.

He will also be developing the smallest versions of these electronic noses; the 'e-nose on chip', which is a single computer chip containing both the sensors and the processing components.

In addition, to targeting the early diagnosis, detection and screening of a disease, artificial olfactory systems are used in environmental-monitoring, the food industries and security.

For further information, please visit: Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Copyright ©European Communities, 2006
Neither the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, nor any person acting on its behalf, is responsible for the use, which might be made of the attached information. The attached information is drawn from the Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS). The CORDIS services are carried on the CORDIS Host in Luxembourg - http://cordis.europa.eu. Access to CORDIS is currently available free-of-charge.

Most Popular Now

Unlocking the 10 Year Health Plan

The government's plan for the NHS is a huge document. Jane Stephenson, chief executive of SPARK TSL, argues the key to unlocking its digital ambitions is to consider what it...

Alcidion Grows Top Talent in the UK, wit…

Alcidion has today announced the addition of three new appointments to their UK-based team, with one internal promotion and two external recruits. Dr Paul Deffley has been announced as the...

AI can Find Cancer Pathologists Miss

Men assessed as healthy after a pathologist analyses their tissue sample may still have an early form of prostate cancer. Using AI, researchers at Uppsala University have been able to...

AI, Full Automation could Expand Artific…

Automated insulin delivery (AID) systems such as the UVA Health-developed artificial pancreas could help more type 1 diabetes patients if the devices become fully automated, according to a new review...

How AI could Speed the Development of RN…

Using artificial intelligence (AI), MIT researchers have come up with a new way to design nanoparticles that can more efficiently deliver RNA vaccines and other types of RNA therapies. After training...

MIT Researchers Use Generative AI to Des…

With help from artificial intelligence, MIT researchers have designed novel antibiotics that can combat two hard-to-treat infections: drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Using generative AI algorithms, the research...

AI Hybrid Strategy Improves Mammogram In…

A hybrid reading strategy for screening mammography, developed by Dutch researchers and deployed retrospectively to more than 40,000 exams, reduced radiologist workload by 38% without changing recall or cancer detection...

Penn Developed AI Tools and Datasets Hel…

Doctors treating kidney disease have long depended on trial-and-error to find the best therapies for individual patients. Now, new artificial intelligence (AI) tools developed by researchers in the Perelman School...

New Training Year Starts at Siemens Heal…

In September, 197 school graduates will start their vocational training or dual studies in Germany at Siemens Healthineers. 117 apprentices and 80 dual students will begin their careers at Siemens...

Are You Eligible for a Clinical Trial? C…

A new study in the academic journal Machine Learning: Health discovers that ChatGPT can accelerate patient screening for clinical trials, showing promise in reducing delays and improving trial success rates. Researchers...

New AI Tool Addresses Accuracy and Fairn…

A team of researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has developed a new method to identify and reduce biases in datasets used to train machine-learning algorithms...

Global Study Reveals How Patients View M…

How physicians feel about artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine has been studied many times. But what do patients think? A team led by researchers at the Technical University of Munich...