Dogs can be trained to detect oncoming seizures, migraines and even identify potential cancer — researchers at Virginia Tech are developing a device that can help humans monitor their health just by breathing.
Dogs have 60 times the number of olfactory receptor neurons in their nose as humans. Professor Masoud Agah is working to give everyone the same sniffing power with a portable device; his newest conceptual patent is for the Personalized Integrated Mobile Exhalation Decoder, or PIMED.
Agah is working on a “sniffer on a chip,” which analyzes volatile organic compounds in a person’s breath and a microelectromechanical sample collector. Using an absorbing agent, it picks up the components for identification by the analyzer.
“For example, if you have diabetes, the level of acetone goes up in your breath,” Agah said. In a home device, or small checkup station similar to public blood pressure cuffs in pharmacies, a person could receive their own breath signature.
“And that smell print or breath print can be used as an identification, to show whether your are prone or showing signs of cancer, or not,” he said.
Agah said the patented decoder could be integrated in a number of devices.
“The whole art is actually what’s happening behind it, and how the information is being translated and provided to the doctors, or to lab technicians, or to the patient,” Agah said.
In the same way that a person can monitor their blood pressure at home, Agah said the PIMED could help a person and their doctor try to stay ahead of diseases before they become visible on a scan or other lab test.
“You can actually see the progression of the changes that are happening in your own signature,” Agah said.
The technology could also be used to help rule out diseases. For instance, an inexpensive breath test “can give some sort of fast analysis and fast screening,” which could help rule out diseases that currently require more expensive and time consuming office or laboratory visits.
Monitoring a person’s breath signature over time could show if cancer is spreading, or how well a cancer treatment is working.
“You have a known parameter — the disease,” Agah said. While monitoring over time, “Now let’s see how much closer your breath print gets to the normal version of yourself. That shows the efficacy of the treatment, without visiting the lab, or getting blood, or anything like that.”
It will take a while before you’d be able to have a disease-sniffing device at home. Agah, and his longtime collaborator John Michalek, are now working to bring the patented device to real-world prototypes.
While a Breathalyzer can only detect blood alcohol content, Agah and Michalek’s work, including PIMED, has focused on miniaturizing analytical technology, through gas chromatography.