Israeli Catholic scientist wins grant for devices to find cancer

Published: 2006-11-28

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Four months after completing his postdoctoral research in chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Hossam Haick had just gotten used to the idea of heading his own little lab when he became the recipient of the largest European Union grant given to an Israeli scientist. Haick, a 31-year-old Catholic resident of Haifa who grew up in Nazareth, was given the grant of $2.26 million to develop nanometric devices to sniff out cancer like an "electric nose." The devices will be about 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a hair, he said. Haick is a researcher and senior lecturer in the chemical engineering department and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, both at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, in Haifa. With the EU grant, Haick hopes to create nanometric devices sensitive enough to sniff out people with cancer as well as detect the stages and location of about 90 percent of cancerous diseases by smelling people's breath.

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