Robot noses could sniff out COVID-19 in real time

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-06-04 04:00

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A robot designed to smell COVID-19 on people could help quickly identify the virus. Israel researchers designed an 'eNose' to mimic a dog's ability to sniff out the disease. 503 people driving through a COVID-19 testing facility allowed researchers to take a sample of air from their nostrils to test with the eNose. The machine was able to detect COVID-19 better than random selection, but not as well as other similar eNose technology that has been trialed.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS One

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Funder: This study was supported by pilot grants from MAFAT: The Israeli Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense Research and Development, and from Sonia T. Marschak. This effort also relied on ongoing Sobel lab resources, provided by a European Research Council AdG. grant #670798 (SocioSmell) and Horizon 2020 FET Open project #662629 (NanoSmell). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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