What happens when you pair honeybees and halitosis? Potentially a life-saving new method to screen for cancer, according to one study. Researchers at Michigan State University have learned that honeybees can detect chemicals associated with lung cancer in human breath. The insects were able to sniff out human lung cancer biomarkers with a remarkable 82% success rate, according to a study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
Saha, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and MSU's Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, sought to determine whether honeybees could distinguish chemicals in a healthy person's breath from that of someone sick with lung cancer. His team developed a 'recipe' for a synthetic breath mixture that contained six compounds present in the breath of someone with cancer and a synthetic 'healthy' breath mixture.