A new breathalyzer sniffs out COVID in real-time and could be used to detect lung disease and cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the moment the laser-based breathalyzer is the size of a large table, but scientists hope to scale it down to be small enough to attach to a phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior author of the study Jun Ye, a professor of physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, said the potential for the technology was “endless”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is a real, foreseeable future in which you could go to the doctor and have your breath measured along with your height and weight,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Or you could blow into a mouthpiece integrated into your phone and get information about your health in real-time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The initial study using the breathalyzer, which is powered by AI, found it detected COVID-19 in real-time with excellent accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between May 2021 and January 2022, the research team collected breath samples from 170 people who had been tested for COVID. Half had tested positive, half negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When compared with PCR results, the breathalyzer got it right 85% of the time. For medical diagnostics, accuracy of 80% or greater is considered “excellent”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The breathalyzer is made up of a complex construction of lasers and mirrors. The breath sample is piped in as lasers fire invisible mid-infrared light at it at thousands of different frequencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because each kind of molecule absorbs light differently, breath samples with a different molecular make-up cast distinct shadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The machine interprets these shadows and can determine – in the case of COVID – whether the sample is positive or negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team is now looking at a range of other diseases in the hope the breathalyzer could revolutionize medical diagnostics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new breathalyzer sniffs out COVID in real-time and could be used to detect lung disease and cancer. At the moment the laser-based breathalyzer is the size of a large table, but scientists hope to scale it down to be small enough to attach to a phone. Senior author of the study Jun Ye, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2525,2527,205,193,2526],"class_list":["post-6662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-breathalyzer","tag-diseases","tag-health","tag-news","tag-real-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6664,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions\/6664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}