The annually held medcical conference on International Breath Analysis Meeting this year will be taking place in the United States October 29 – November 4, in Sonoma, California. This University of California at Davis event provides a platform for innovators to display their latest innovations and technologies in healthcare. As human breath analysis further develops as a multidisciplinary field it is clear that sensor development, instrumentation systems, and algorithms play critical roles within this medical research area. Although much emphasis in the last decade has focused on breath biometric compound identification and physiological relevance, there is a turn of attention towards portable, fieldable sensor platforms for non-invasive breath monitoring. Topics will include technologies for screening for diseases like cancer and infections by breath analysis. In a phone interview today, the organizer of the event, Cristina Davis PhD, stated “there will be a wide variety of attendees at the conference with both small and large companies, plus representatives from government and universities.”
The purpose of this international workshop is to assemble a group of leading experts around the world in this field to discuss their own research, debate trends, and future directions in the field. They will also contemplate areas of research that deserve special attention in the field moving forward. This year’s conference attendees are coming from 18 different countries including 14 different states in the United States, from over 50 cities from around the globe. Over 20 companies ranging from startups to mid to large corporations will be present including over 10 government agencies and laboratories and over 40 academic universities and medical centers.
The workshop begins with Nick Kenyan and his discussion of clinical breath testing as a multidisciplinary field for engineers, clinicians, scientists and entrepreneurs. Jochen Schubert will speak on biomarkers and non-invasive biochemical analysis. Michael Epton from Australia at Christchurch Hospital will speak on and moderate topics on tuberculosis and other infections, plus breath markers for tuberculosis, specific volatiles for tuberculosis detection, and detection of tuberculosis with specific techniques and arrays.
Additional topics will be presented, including one by Perena Gouma that will include personalized breath diagnostics, based on selective chemosensors. There will also be topics of screening for Cystic Fibrosis, drugs, evolution of metabolites in breath, ways of using gas chromatography, analysis of different chemicals including ammonia and ketones that can help with the care of intensive care patients, as well as ways to assess pulmonary function.
There will be a presentation at the medical conference by Pascal Girard of Oracle on how to deal with big data. Oracle’s new work with the National Cancer Institute and how it can help the breath analysis community. Other topics will include measurements of metabolites for cancer detection including DNA and RNA markers of cancer in breath samples.