Sniffing out cancer

摘要

A human nose can selectively detect many different chemicals by means of a diverse set of olfactory receptors linked to sensory neurons. Mimicking this sensing capacity in devices termed bioelectronic noses could lead to the development of new sensing and diagnostic platforms. Now, Lim et al. have fabricated a bioelectronic nose consisting of single-walled carbon nanotube-based field-effect transistors (FETs) functionalized with olfactory nanovesicles that can selectively detect heptanal, a chemical biomarker present in the blood of lung-cancer patients.