Scientists at Michigan State University found that bees can detect biomarkers related to lung cancer in human respiratory products. Moreover, bees can distinguish different types of lung cancer cells only by smelling the "smell" of cell culture. These findings are expected to help scientists develop new test models to diagnose lung cancer as soon as possible. Relevant papers were published in the latest issue of the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

The Spanish magazine Fun once pointed out that dogs, pigeons, mice and other animals' excellent sense of smell and keen eyesight enable them to find some disease symptoms more accurately than many human experts. For example, researchers at the Davis Medical Center at the University of California found that pigeons can identify whether breast tissue in the image is healthy or cancerous through learning.

Debakin Saha, the head of the latest research, said that insects have an amazing sense of smell like dogs. They hope to find out whether bees can distinguish the chemical substances in the breath of healthy people and lung cancer patients. To this end, they used six compounds with different concentrations, such as trichloroethylene and 2-methylheptane, to synthesize respiratory mixtures for lung cancer patients and healthy people, and carried out tests on about 20 bees.

The researchers designed a 3D printing strap to fix the living bees, and connected a tiny electrode on the bee brain to measure the changes of the bee brain signal. They passed the odor mixture to the electrodes on the bees and recorded the neural signals in the bees' brains. Results Several different neuronal discharges were detected in the bee brain, which can distinguish the respiratory substances of lung cancer patients and healthy people. In addition, they found that bees can distinguish very small changes in the chemical concentration of the respiratory mixture.

The researchers also conducted further experiments using different types of human lung cancer cell cultures. They used sensors based on bees' brains to test the smell of lung cancer cells. The results show that these sensors can distinguish small cell lung cancer cells, non small cell lung cancer cells and healthy cells.

The researchers pointed out that this means that bees can not only detect lung cancer cells, but also distinguish the types of lung cancer cells, which is crucial for early and rapid detection of lung cancer. This research will also open the door for more biological and olfactory disease detection technologies.