A view of bees on honeycomb in Kemalpasa district of Izmir, Turkiye on May 07, 2024. (Photo by Lokman Ilhan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

BY RICH JOHNSON – 06/14/24 8:40 PM ET | The Hill

  • Researchers at Michigan State created synthetic human breath
  • They detected changes in bees’ brains when exposed to lung cancer breath
  • Eventual goal: Create breath detector with sensor based on bee brains

(NewsNation) — Bad breath may say a lot about you. But soon, it could help determine if you have lung cancer — if a honeybee gets a whiff.

Researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that honeybees can detect the chemicals associated with lung cancer in a person’s breath.

Saha’s team developed a “recipe” for a synthetic breath mixture using different levels of six compounds. One version created the breath of a healthy human, and another created the chemical makeup of the breath of someone with lung cancer.

Using a special harness to hold a live honeybee, researchers attached a tiny electrode to the bee’s brain to measure changes in brain signals.

“We pass those odors on to the antenna of the honeybees and recorded the neural signals from their brain,” said Saha. “We (saw) a change in the honeybee’s neural firing response.”

The researchers detected several different neurons firing in the bees’ brains, which showed a clear difference between smelling the synthetic lung cancer breath and the healthy breath.

The plan is to use this research to develop a sensor that mimics the honeybee brain. That would be used in a device patients would breathe into, and the device would report in real time if cancer chemicals are present.