Optical 'dog's nose' may hold key to breath analysis
2015-07-07
(Press-News.org) University of Adelaide researchers are developing a laser system for fast, non-invasive, onsite breath analysis for disease, potentially enabling screening for a range of diseases including diabetes, infections and various cancers in the future.
The researchers have developed an instrument they equate to an "optical dog's nose" which uses a special laser to measure the molecular content of a sample of gas.
"Rather than sniffing out a variety of smells as a dog would, the laser system uses light to "sense" the range of molecules that are present in the sample," says Dr James Anstie, Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Fellow with the University's Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS).
"Those molecules are by-products of metabolic processes in the body and their levels change when things go wrong. There have been good studies undertaken around the world which show that diseases like lung and oesophageal cancer, asthma and diabetes can be detected in this way, even before external symptoms are showing."
Breath analysis is a relatively new field being pursued around the world. But the system being developed offers almost-instant results, high sensitivity and the ability to test for a range of molecules at once -- making it promising for broadscale health screening.
Published in the journal Optics Express, Dr Anstie and colleagues including Masters student Nicolas Bourbeau Herbert, PhD student Sarah Scholten, senior research associate Dr Richard White and IPAS director Professor Andre Luiten detail their use of optical spectroscopy to detect the light-absorption patterns of different molecules, with high levels of accuracy and speed.
The system uses a specialised laser - an optical frequency comb - that sends up to a million different light frequencies through the sample in parallel. Each molecule absorbs light at different optical frequencies and therefore has a unique molecular fingerprint.
"We now have a robust system to be able to detect the presence and concentrations of molecules in a sample," says Dr Anstie. "The next step is to work out how to accurately sample and interpret the levels which will naturally vary from person to person."
Dr Anstie believes the group will have a working prototype in 2-3 years and a commercial "plug and play" product could be available in 3-5 years. Other potential applications include measuring trace gasses, such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, and detecting impurities in natural gas streams.
INFORMATION:
The research is funded through the ARC, the Premier's Research and Industry Fund and a South Australian Government Catalyst Research Grant.
Media Contact:
Dr James Anstie
ARC Research Fellow
Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing
School of Physical Sciences
The University of Adelaide
Phone: +61 8313 2322
Mobile: +61 421 758 023
james.anstie@adelaide.edu.au
Robyn Mills
Media and Communications Officer
The University of Adelaide
Phone: +61 8 8313 6341
Mobile: +61 (0)410 689 084
robyn.mills@adelaide.edu.au
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-07-07
KUNMING, 7 July 2015 - Increasing amounts of environmentally valuable and protected land are being cleared for rubber plantations that are economically unsustainable, new research suggests. More widespread monitoring is vital to design policy that protects livelihoods and environments.
The research was recently published in Global Environmental Change and constitutes a joint effort by scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) East and Central Asia office, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the University of Singapore and the ...
2015-07-07
A piece of deep frozen ice and electronic gadgets may seem to have little connection (except that they are both 'cool' to have on you), but ice could now play a role in opening a new era in the electronic industry where conducting polymers, simply put plastics with electrical properties, are in great demand for practical applications.
Chemists at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea, have discovered an innovative method to form two-dimensional polyaniline (PANI) nanosheets using ice as a hard template. The product, called PANI-ICE, is reported ...
2015-07-07
Today theoretical physicists are facing the difficulty that General Relativity is not (pertubatively) renormalizable, and find that it is very hard to construct the quantum theory of gravity with LI. A possible solution is to break the LI in the ultraviolet (UV) region, so that the theory is renormalizable and unitary. However, the invariance should be recovered in the infrared (IR), so that all of the gravitational experiments in the IR can be satisfied. According to this idea, Horava proposed a Horava-Lifshitz (HL) gravity without LI [P. Horava, Phys. Rev. D 79 (2009) ...
2015-07-07
Recent experiments have successfully tested Einstein's general theory of relativity in a variety of ways and to remarkable precision. These experiments included spacecraft Doppler tracking, planetary radar ranging, lunar and satellite laser ranging, as well as a number of dedicated gravitational experiments in space and many ground based efforts. How can computational models keep up with the ever improving accuracy of these missions?
Finding a solution to the Einstein's gravitational field equations in the case of an unperturbed one-body problem is quite a simple task. ...
2015-07-07
This news release is available in Japanese.
The Earth's magnetic field periodically reverses such that the north magnetic pole becomes the south magnetic pole. The latest reversal is called by geologists the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary (MBB), and occurred approximately 780,000 years ago. The MBB is extremely important for calibrating the ages of rocks and the timing of events that occurred in the geological past; however, the exact age of this event has been imprecise because of uncertainties in the dating methods that have been used.
A team of researchers based in ...
2015-07-07
July 6, 2015, Shenzhen, China-- Mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) database demonstrated its great value on detecting wild bees in UK farms via mitochondrial metagenomics pipeline, a new approach developed by scientists from the China National Genebank (CNGB), BGI-Shenzhen.
The study published today in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution shows that, with mitogenome references, collecting wild bees, extracting their mixed DNA, and directly reading the DNA of the resultant 'bee soup' could finally make large-scale bee monitoring programmes feasible. This new research ...
2015-07-07
Chicago (July 7, 2015)- Switzerland has a long history of trying to be as self-sufficient and energy independent as possible. Although its energy supply system has served it well in the past, the country is now looking to turn away from its reliance on nuclear power and seeks to compensate for the energy lost from hydropower as a result of climate change. In the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, Dominic Notter of Empa discusses how the country aims to address this transition, finding a new supply mix that combines energy conservation, ...
2015-07-07
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have identified a key mechanism in neuropathic pain. The discovery could eventually benefit millions of patients with chronic pain from trauma, diabetes, shingles, multiple sclerosis or other conditions that cause nerve damage.
A biological process called endoplasmic reticulum stress, or ER stress, is the significant driver of neuropathic pain, said lead researchers Bora Inceoglu of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Ahmed Bettaieb, Department of Nutrition. ...
2015-07-07
LOS ANGELES (July 6, 2015) - Cedars-Sinai researchers have successfully tested two new methods for preserving cognition in laboratory mice that exhibit features of Alzheimer's disease by using white blood cells from bone marrow and a drug for multiple sclerosis to control immune response in the brain.
Under the two approaches, immune cells from outside the brain were found to travel in greater numbers through the blood into the brain. The study showed measurable benefits in mice, an encouraging step toward further testing of these potentially powerful strategies in human ...
2015-07-07
New research suggests guidelines on children's exposure to radio frequency waves from technology are confusing for parents.
The review into the polices of 34 countries, carried out by Dr Mary Redmayne, from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, found varying degrees of advice about children's exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF).
RF-EMFs are emitted from technology including WiFi, tablets and mobile phones. Associated with an increased risk of some brain tumours in heavy and long-term phone users, RF-EMFs ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Optical 'dog's nose' may hold key to breath analysis
