Tuesday, September 30, 2008

MIT sniffs out artificial nose production

By Mass High Tech Staff

MIT engineers working on the RealNose project have announced the ability to mass produce “artificial noses” that could potentially replace drug- and explosive-sniffing dogs in the future, according to a published report. The project has also brought on additional funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Until now, engineers hadn’t been able to mass produce enough receptors to be able to study smell, according to MIT researcher Brian Cook. That left unexplored nearly 400 functional human genes, and about 1,000 dog genes, associated with olfactory senses.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a report showing how to isolate and purify membrane proteins from their cell surface in a hydrophobic detergent solution that won’t cause the proteins to lose their structure and function. Instead, the cell-free method builds a receptor by using wheat germ extract and making large amounts of protein to initiate research on the subject.

Eventually, the researchers intend to use portable microfluidic devices to decipher different odors, which may be able to trace the scent of certain diseases, including lung cancer, skin cancer, bladder cancer and diabetes.

Researchers and authors of the paper describing the cell-free protein membrane production process include Cook, Shuguang Zhang, Liselotte Kaiser, Johanna Graveland-Bikker, Dirk Steuerwald, Melanie Vanberghem and Kara Herlihy.