An electronic nose developed for air quality monitoring on Space Shuttle Endeavour can also be used to detect differences between normal and cancerous brain cells according to a recent study.

Neurosurgeons from the City of Hope Cancer Center neurosurgeons and scientists from the Brain Mapping Foundation in West Hollywood, CA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, used NASA's electronic nose to investigate the role of cellular odors in cellular trafficking, brain cancer metastasis, stem cell migration, and the potential of the device to be used for intraoperative imaging, according to at Elsevier press release.

The electronic nose can detect contaminants within a range of one to approximately 10,000 parts per million. It can also be used to detect difference in the odor of normal and cancerous cells as shown by data from The Brain Mapping Foundation. Experiments using NASA's electronic nose to sniff brain cancer cells and cells in other organs are expected to lead to further biochemical analysis and experimentation.
Results of the pilot study will be presented at the 6th Annual World Congress for Brain Mapping & Image Guided Therapy at Harvard Medical School, August 26-29.