Instrumentation for Monitoring Breath Biomarkers for Diagnosis of Health, Condition, Toxic Exposure, and Disease

Detecting the presence and levels of endogenously produced molecules in expired breath offers potential for non-invasive monitoring of warfighter health, physiologic condition, and toxin/radiation exposure. Until now, exploiting this potential has been limited by a lack of suitable technology for simple, rapid, reliable and versatile breath analysis measurements. To address this need, Physical Sciences Inc. in collaboration with our academic research partner, Johns Hopkins University, proposes to develop a compact, portable, and high sensitivity system for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of normal and abnormal human physiology via human breath analysis. The breath analysis system will employ photonic biosensor platform technology based on the marriage of the very latest in tunable, mid-wave IR semiconductor laser technology and cavity-enhanced spectroscopy for ultra-sensitive absorption measurements. The proposed instrument will enable rapid, reliable and real-time measurements of trace levels of selected biomarker gases in exhaled breath. Our recent Phase I effort has shown the feasibility of developing compact, transportable, laser spectrometers capable of real-time monitoring of breath ethane and carbon monoxide (CO). Breath ethane is a key biomarker of oxidative stress status (OSS) and breath carbon monoxide a biomarker of OS response. In the proposed Phase II program we will: 1) develop a transportable, prototype breath analyzer that will measure breath ethane and carbon monoxide, and 2) demonstrate its utility in clinical studies focused on the use of breath ethane and CO to quantify tissue injury caused by ionizing radiation.