This New Sensor Could Sniff Out Pneumonia on a Person's Breath

Researchers at MIT built a portable sensor prototype called PlasmoSniff that detects disease signals in exhaled breath.

The device works by having patients inhale tagged nanoparticles and then measuring tiny exhaled biomarkers with plasmonic Raman spectroscopy.

So far the team has tested the prototype only in mice and scanned for a single biomarker, and human testing remains needed.

The sensor uses gold nanoparticles over a thin gold film to amplify molecular vibrations and isolate target VOCs in breath.