Imagine if your phone could smell a disease before you felt any symptoms. This project creates a digital 'nose' that can identify the unique chemical scent of illnesses like Parkinson's. It can even recreate those smells digitally, allowing doctors to share and study patient odors across the world.
Medical diagnostics currently rely on the subjective sense of smell of trained personnel to detect certain diseases. There is a lack of standardized, digital tools to record, transmit, and analyze body odors for early-stage disease detection.
A system of biomimetic sensors using mucin-derived building blocks and a proof-of-principle 'Odor Display' capable of digitizing and synthesizing body odors.
If you are a diagnostic equipment manufacturer dealing with the lack of objective tools for early disease detection — this project developed biomimetic sensors that create a digital fingerprint of body odors to identify neurodegenerative diseases.
If you are a telemedicine platform provider dealing with the inability to perform physical sensory exams remotely — this project developed an Odor Display that enables the transmission and synthesis of body odors over time and space.
If you are a biosensor developer dealing with low sensitivity in electronic noses — this project developed sensors using mucin-derived building blocks to better mimic the human nose's interaction with odor molecules.
Based on available project data, the specific unit price or commercial cost of the sensors is not mentioned; however, the project received an EU contribution of EUR 3,263,781 for development.
The project has produced and tested new sensors and a proof-of-principle odor display, but based on available project data, it is currently at the science-to-technology breakthrough stage rather than full industrial scale.
Based on available project data, specific patents are not listed, but the technology was developed by a consortium including SmartNanotubes Technologies GmbH, which produced the functionalized sensors.
The system provides healthcare professionals with standardized verbal information about patients’ body odors, replacing subjective human perception with digital fingerprints.
The project period runs from 2022-04-01 to 2025-09-30, suggesting that commercial availability would follow the conclusion of this research phase.
The consortium is heavily research-driven, consisting of 6 partners from 4 countries (CZ, DE, FI, IL). It is dominated by academic institutions (4 universities and 1 research center), with a low industry ratio of 17%. The presence of one SME, SmartNanotubes Technologies GmbH, provides the necessary bridge for translating the biomimetic sensor research into a physical product.
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