Monday, 19th June 2006 (4716 views)

A new kind of electronic nose that uses a gold microelectrode could be used by doctors in the future to "sniff" out odours released as a result of diseases, Discovery News reports.

Gold has a great many applications in science and medicine, including the use of gold nanoparticles in cancer treatments and in possible vaccines for a human variant of avian flu.

The latest development could see a layer of proteins mounted on a gold microelectrode, which is in turn positioned on a tiny computer chip to form a kind of robotic nose.

According to an announcement made by the EU's Information Society's Technologies program, researchers are using the nose's bioelectric sensors to measure electrochemical changes in a liquid cell. Skin cancer cells and bacterial infections can produce distinctive electrochemical patterns.

The sensitivity of the nose is greater than that of the human nose, which Professor Oscar Ruiz says is "not especially well-suited for odour recognition".

Professor Ruiz, who is working on the project, added that a commercial prototype could be ready within five to ten years.

 

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