BreathTec Biomedical, Inc. and Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) have entered into a licensing agreement that will accelerate the commercialization of a disease-sniffing breath analysis device and prepare the tool for clinical trials in North America. NA-NOSE is the moniker for this nanoscale artificial nose technology that’s capable of detecting a multitude of disease- and bacteria-specific particles in a patient’s breath – sometimes long before symptoms of any particular condition are present.

Research teams led by Hossam Haick, PhD, professor of chemical engineering at the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, have equipped the NA-NOSE device with the ability to detect varying concentrations of 13 different compounds that correlate with “breathprints” taken from patients with 17 different diseases. In a recent experiment, the breath detecting array was able to correctly “sense” diseases or infections in 86% of the 1,400 patients tested. The NA-NOSE was also able to accurately identify the presence of more than one condition in the same patient using the same set of marker compounds.

Click here to review the press release and study publication in the journal of the American Chemical Society.