A research consortium in Israel is developing a product that, when coupled with a smartphone, will be able to screen the user’s breath for early detection of life-threatening diseases.

Funded by a grant from the European Commission, the SNIFFPHONE project will link existing breathalyzer screening technology to the smartphone to provide noninvasive, fast and cheap disease detection.

It will work by using micro- and nano-sensors that read exhaled breath and then transfer the information through the attached mobile phone to an information-processing system for interpretation. The data is then assessed and disease diagnosis and other details are ascertained.