Ooooh that smell …!
“Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you’re in my way
There’s too much coke and too much smoke
Look what’s going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you”
(“That Smell” by US rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released in 1977 – a song about Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington who bought a new car, got drunk and crashed it into a tree and then into a house.)
You remember this ole song? It crossed my mind when I heard of the following: US chemist Michelle Gallagher and colleagues recently presented the first odour profile for skin cancer (Gallagher is employed by Monell Chemical Senses Center, a non-profit institute dedicated to basic research on the senses of taste, smell and chemosensory irritation). The scientist was inspired by previous research reports that dogs could be trained to detect the scent of cancer.
ScienCentral (where you can view this interview with Gallagher) commented: “That [the first odour profile for skin cancer] could lead to a new cancer sniffing technology”.
Ha-ha! – A new sniffing technology. Nice wording!
Well, this story’s background actually isn’t that funny. Skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, BCC) is the most common type of cancer in industrialised countries, killing 17,000 every year in Europe and nearly 9,000 in the USA. A prominent skin cancer patient is US president nominee John McCain.
Such a “synthetic nose” could be a much easier and less painful way to get patient’s diagnosis. At present, doctors diagnose skin cancer by visual examination, followed by an invasive biopsy.
Gallagher’s experimental methods (when developing an assay to distinguish between normal and cancerous skin) were unorthodox, too: she used a tool that looked like an upside down martini glass to sample the air above skin from volunteers (Gallagher detected 92 chemicals using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry).
An upside down martini glass. Amazing. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s musicians would have been amused.
Unfortunately, it’s beyond their power. Half the rock band was killed in a tragic plane crash a few days after their 1977 tour had started.
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