Research Projects

Lung cancer has been found to be one of the major causative factors of cancer mortality, and its incidence rate is elevating globally. Early diagnosis followed by appropriate treatment can reduce the mortality burden. Most of the cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage, since cancer is usually silent early in its course. In addition, the symptoms are also non-specific, which makes early diagnosis again complicated. Exhaled breath contains a large number of molecular species including simple molecules like CO, NO, CS2, NH3 and complex volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like aldehydes, alkyl amines, and hydrocarbons. The presence and the concentration of these molecules provide unique biomarkers which can provide valuable insights into an individual’s health status. A good screening method for early detection and staging is thus very urgent for the detection of these Volatile Organic Compounds -VOCs- in exhaled breath, or “Breath Analysis”. The spectral data will be processed by AI/ML data processing methods to give, Observer Independent diagnosis. In the present project we propose to develop a portable, cost-effective breath analysis instrumentation based on spectroscopic technique, which can be operated by trained health-care workers in places like, rural centres, industrial establishments, medical camps etc. for routine screening by totally non-invasive “Breath Analysis”. Laser photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) followed by Pattern Analysis, a novel concept, to provide a cost-effective, non-invasive technology for universal screening. The initial phase of the work will be focused on the design and fabrication of optimized PA cells for the optical setup that can facilitate sensitive detection. The second objective will be focused on testing of the optimized setup for breath analysis applications by collecting breath samples from healthy volunteers/ Lung-disease patients with informed consent. The final objective of this work is directed at evaluating the possibility of developing a cost-effective, miniaturized, multi-wavelength setup, which can be explored for routine applications. The laser-based PAS setup is relatively costly and of larger size. Since the PAS technique has very high sensitivity, a coherent, high-power radiation source, like the expensive laser, can be replaced with a cost-effective LED sources of suitable wavelengths which will be more compact, portable and easily adaptable for point-of-care applications.