A team, led by Joerg Lahann at the University of Michigan, have won funding to develop a breath test device which will use nanotechnology to detect breast cancer.

A woman would breathe into an over-the-counter device and cancer-indicating metabolites would be attracted into the nanopockets, causing the pored surface to fill and become dense. Then, an electrical charge would be applied so that the straight particles would bend, ejecting the metabolites so that multiple tests could be done in the same device. The metabolites could then be detected through a change in conductance or optically.

Lahann’s graduate student David Pang had the idea when he discovered that certain metabolites that could mark breast cancer are present in breath and urine. “We realised that if one could put these molecules in a screening platform, they might develop a non-invasive, quick and inexpensive over-the-counter breast cancer screening test,” Lahann said.

Via The Engineer.