SniffPhone wins 2018 Innovation Award

Congratulations to all partners in the SniffPhone Consortium!

We have been awarded the 2018 Innovation Award by the European Commission for Most Innovative Project. This is a great honor rewarding the excellent work that has been done in this project.

SniffPhone is a compact handheld device that measures exhaled breath for early diagnosis of cancer. The user holds the device in front of his or her mouth, and exhales onto the SniffPhone. The device then takes a sample of the exhaled breath and measures the contained Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) using highly sensitive nanotechnology-based chemical sensors. The measurements are sent via Bluetooth using a smartphone to a dedicated cloud platform, where they are analyzed by the appropriate medical personnel. 

In this way, SniffPhone has an unparalleled advantage over traditional screening methods: the device is comfortable and painless to use and provides a simple and cost-effective alternative for medical professionals.

The SniffPhone project is financed under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technological development and demonstration. The SniffPhone was developed by a consortium of nine partners from six countries. The nanosensors of the SniffPhone were developed in Israel, the micropump by Cellix in Ireland, fluidics by Microfluidic ChipShop in Germany, and the cloud platform by VTT in Finland. The clinical studies were carried out at the University of Latvia in Riga, with further testing and technical experimentation done in Austria at the University of Innsbruck. Siemens has taken part in the testing and validation phase of the SniffPhone project and conducted usability studies. JLM Innovation, Germany provides system integration, the device software, the SniffPhone App and algorithms for the measurement system.

The 2018 Innovation Award was granted on the 21^st of November in Lisbon, at the European Forum for Electronic Components and System (EFECS). SniffPhone was chosen from many highly qualified projects as the most innovative concept in Horizon 2020. Project Coordinator Prof. Hossam Haick from the Technion Institute of Technology in Israel and Dr. Jan Mitrovics, CEO of JLM Innovation GmbH received the award at the official ceremony.

Presently, the prototypes of the SniffPhone device have been distributed between the medical project partners to carry out further clinical testing. As a next step in the SniffPhone project, investors are being sought out to bring the promising research project to the market through a spin-off company. The potential of this technology platform could revolutionize cancer Screening for patients all over the world.

Combining research efforts of nine teams in 6 countries, SniffPhone has really achieved something extraordinary, creating an better way to provide cancer screening for many patients in the future!