CIDI Israeli invention can sniff cancer#.TkiRInSXnzt.email#.TkiRInSXnzt.email



Wed 04-05-2011

An Arab-Israeli researcher at the Technion has figured out a way to identify cancer in a person’s breath

The patient walks into the oncology department’s checkup room. The doctors suspect cancer. But instead of running intrusive biopsies or complicated scans, they only ask that he blow for about 15 seconds into a strange-looking device that looks like a faucet. Within minutes, a computer delivers a full diagnosis.

It sounds like a scene from a science fiction film, but the device described above already exists. It can be found at the Technion in Haifa, the Israeli university for exact sciences. Currently, the device is still in the experimental phase. But in view of the crucial importance of early detection in the fight against cancer, the Technion’s “electric nose” may revolutionize the world of oncology.

The implications of this have not eluded the scientific community. This is the reason that the young Arab-Israeli inventor of this device was named by MIT’s Technology Review – a prestigious magazine – among the world’s 35 most promising inventors.

“Current cancer diagnosis techniques are ineffective and impractical,” says Dr. Hussam Haick, 34, who was born in Nazareth. “Mostly the patient arrives for diagnosis when the symptoms of the sickness have already begun to appear. Months pass before a real analysis in completed. And the process requires complicated and expensive equipment such as CT and mammography imaging devices. Each machine costs millions of dollars, and end up delivering rough, inaccurate results.”

Haick’s device will, one fully developed, be small and mobile, costing less than 1,000 dollars per unit. It is meant for use not only in oncology departments, but as a standard item at the family doctor’s office, and used in routine inspections for patients, just like tests for blood pressure.

Dr. Haick hails from a Christian-Arab family. His father is a lecturer on machine engineering in a technical school in Karmiel. He insisted that Hussam and his four siblings learn exact sciences. “He gave us free choice, on the condition that we also learn engineering on top of whethever we wanted to study,” Dr. Haick says. His oldest brother is an engineer at Intel’s Haifa plant. Their two sisters are both math teachers, and the youngest sister is close to finishing her medical studies, also at the Technion. 

Haik, who is married and hasone child, wrote his master’s degree at the Technion, continuing to take up a position at the Weizmann Institute in Rechovot, where he studies molecular biology. He acquired the basis for his knowledge of olfactory technology at Caltech in California, where he wrote is post doctorate. His research was made possible through the use of sensors belonging to NASA.

The American space agency ended up offering Haik a position, but in 2006 he decided he would return to Israel instead. He returned to the Technion, where he set up a team of scientists to work on the electric, cancer-detection device. Currently, the team consists of 26 people from Israel, Singapore, China, Germany, India en Russia.

Their eventual breakthrough is based on a chemical discovery made possible through the use of spectroscopic analyses of molecular presence, which showed that cancer patients emit certain, characteristic elements in their breath. Haik says that he is not at liberty to elaborate on the issue due to copyright limitations.

Research indicated that Dogs are also capable of sniffing out cancer. “But the use of dogs for diagnosis remain impractical,” Haick adds. Nonetheless, these indications inspired him to come up with a device which simulates the canine olfactory ability to sense cancer. At the lab, Haick and the members of his team began collecting and mapping out the relevant chemical compounds and identifying them with nanometric sensors.

Clinical tests began 18 months ago at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, with 400 cancer patients and 400 people without cancer. The results were very encouraging, according to Haick. “I believe that within a few years this device will be is wide use,” he says. “We have overcome the main technological hurdles, and proved that diagnosing cancer is possible through analysis of a person’s breath. And we’ve classified a few different types of cancer which can be detected in this way, though not enough of them. We are working on broadening that list now.”

Besides cancer, the electric nose is capable of sensing nephrology dysfunctions. This aspect is also beig researched at Rambam Hospital.

“Israeli universities all suffer from shortage in funds,” Haick says. “But the Technion spends its budget in a very effective manner. While some universities splurge on beautifl buildings and facilities, Technion invests in a young, dynamic and prestigious staff. This is an investment which will surely pay off.”

But the Technion’s tempting offer is not the only reason that Haick came back to Israel. “If I stayed in the US, I would be successful there. But also isolated,” Haick concludes. “A good scientist needs to have more than a good feeling for discoveries. They must first of all be good people, and that happens when one is connected to one’s community. For me, that can only happen in Israel.”