(NewsNation) — Bad breath can say a lot about you. But soon, it could help determine if you have lung cancer – if a bee smells it.
Researchers in Michigan State University found that bees can detect chemicals associated with lung cancer in a person’s breath.
“Insects have an incredible sense of smell, just like dogs,” said Debajit Saha, assistant professor at MSU’s Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, in a university statement.
Saha’s team developed a “recipe” for a synthetic respiratory blend using different levels of six compounds. One version created the breath of a healthy human being and another created the chemical composition of the breath of someone with lung cancer.
Using a special harness to hold a live bee, researchers attached a small electrode to the bee’s brain to measure changes in brain signals.
“We passed these odors to the bees’ antennae and recorded the neural signals from their brains,” Saha said. “We (saw) a change in the bee’s neural firing response.”
The researchers detected several different neurons firing in the bees’ brains, which showed a clear difference between smelling synthetic lung cancer breath and healthy breath.
The plan is to use this research to develop a sensor that mimics the bee’s brain. This would be used in a device that patients would breathe into, and the device would report in real time if carcinogenic chemicals were present.
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the U.S., behind only prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 234,000 new cases of lung cancer will be detected this year and around 125,000 people will die from it.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
