Self-Administered Adhesive Plaster for Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Hossam Haick of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Israel is developing a sensing plaster that can be stuck on the chest to detect volatile biomarkers emitted through the skin for self-diagnosis of tuberculosis even at early stages. The presence of tuberculosis will be signaled by colored LEDs. In Phase I, they evaluated different materials and selected non-toxic nanomaterial-based sensors. They also performed a study of healthy people and tuberculosis patients and identified several candidate volatile compounds that could be detected by the sensors. In Phase II they will further optimize the plaster to improve wearability and detection, and perform field tests at tuberculosis clinics in South Africa, India and China.