Hossam Haick, a Technion professor of chemical engineering and nanotechnology, is bringing medical innovation to populations where reliable electricity and access to hospitals remain luxuries. His low-cost skin patch, designed to detect diseases through analysis of compounds released by human skin, represents a practical approach to early diagnosis in resource-constrained settings — a problem he confronted directly during a taxi ride through a poor area near Mumbai's airport.
The patch, roughly four centimeters by four centimeters, contains electrical circuits and six sensors that detect substances released by skin and transmit data to a phone app. It continuously compares readings against statistical databases of people with and without diseases, sending alerts when it detects shifts toward illness. Haick expects commercial use within two or three years, with each patch costing a few dozen dollars and lasting for months. A specialized tuberculosis version costs $1.50 to manufacture — a threshold Haick initially promised to meet for Bill Gates himself.
From Breath Analysis to Skin Monitoring
Haick's work began with a different problem: early disease detection through analysis of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in exhaled breath. After a university friend developed leukemia, he decided to focus on cancer diagnosis. He developed an electronic nose — a portable device combining sensors and artificial intelligence — to analyze breath for early disease markers. That device, now about the size of a hand and roughly 88% accurate, has received Breakthrough Device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for lung cancer and advanced liver fibrosis unrelated to alcohol consumption.
The electronic nose identifies 17 diseases through distinctive chemical signatures unique to each condition. Studies have found it can identify lung cancer early, sometimes before clear symptoms develop. Prof. Nir Peled, head of oncology at Shaare Zedek Medical Center and chairman of the Israeli Lung Cancer Foundation, is working with Haick on sensors that characterize lung cancer cells molecularly. Peled said the system identifies treatment response and disease progression faster than other clinical methods and has been expanded to several cancer types and locations worldwide.
The Patch's Clinical Validation
The skin patch was first tested on tuberculosis. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it was tested on approximately 2,000 people in India, South Africa and Latvia, achieving roughly 90% accuracy in detecting active tuberculosis compared with a control group. It achieved similar results for latent tuberculosis, which has no symptoms but can develop into active disease. Haick's team developed a self-repairing polymer patch: chemical bonds reconnect after damage without heat, ultraviolet radiation or external stimulus, in about 30 seconds.
Haick said his laboratory has generated nearly 100 registered patents. The patch costs a little over a dollar to manufacture and works for months but needs testing in real-world conditions to demonstrate reliable disease identification. He's conducting large trials involving tens of thousands of people to identify chemical signatures of malaria, COVID-19, degenerative and infectious diseases, and several cancers. One lung cancer trial involves 5,600 participants and 20 partners with a 14.8 million-euro grant. A schizophrenia consortium includes 3,700 participants, 18 partners and an 8 million-euro budget; researchers will monitor people experiencing psychosis for a year and a half to three years to identify early signs.
A Career Built on Excellence
Haick, 51, grew up in Nazareth in a Christian family of five children. His father, Jihad, died of lung cancer a year before the interview. His father left his home village at 21, after his first son was born, to pursue education without support. He worked as a teacher in Nazareth, studied at the Technion in the evenings and prepared lessons at night. "Try harder," his father repeatedly told him.
Haick earned a bachelor's degree at Ben-Gurion University and a doctorate at the Technion, then held postdoctoral fellowships at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the California Institute of Technology. He spent six years as dean of undergraduate studies, overseeing several thousand students. He introduced an annual student art exhibition and established 12 committees to change stages of the degree process. One new admissions route allows applicants to enroll with a high school matriculation certificate, including one with low grades; their continuation depends on first-semester performance. Of about 200 students admitted through the route each year, about a quarter meet the requirements and continue, with average grades higher than those of students admitted through the regular route.
A Nature article Haick co-authored 6 years ago reported that since 2004 — 22 years ago — the number of Arab students at the Technion had risen by 200%, Arab women students by 350% and outstanding Arab students by 1,800%, while the dropout rate fell by 67%. Haick served as assistant to the Technion's senior vice president, responsible for equal opportunities. He said he opposed affirmative action, describing his approach as investing in staff and support to help students succeed. "I believe in excellence, and advancement on that basis alone," he said.
International Recognition and Professional Challenges
Haick received a Marie Curie grant 20 years ago, in October 2006, worth 1.73 million euros — compared with Israel Science Foundation grants of $200,000. The funding enabled him to establish a lab with 17 students and researchers rather than two. Prof. Yachin Cohen of the Technion's Faculty of Chemical Engineering contacted him near the end of his time at Caltech with funding and told him about the EU Marie Curie grant no Israeli scientist had yet received. Haick said the deadline was a week away; he worked 22 hours a day, submitted his application 15 minutes before the deadline and won the grant.
He returned to Israel before the Second Lebanon War, during which he said he hid under his desk more than once. Last July, President Isaac Herzog called Haick to say he would receive the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor. Haick had also been elected a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors and received the Order of Academic Palms from the French government. He lives in Haifa with his wife, a food engineer, and their sons, aged 18 and 13.
During the Gaza war, while serving as dean, he moved some exams to the Technion's Tel Aviv campus because of missile fire on the north and received threats to his life. "They told me, 'We'll slaughter you if you don't change your decision.' Those exact words," he said. A decade before the interview, Haick received threats and harassment because he was "an Arab working on sensors, a technology that can be used in missiles." He said he was repeatedly humiliated at Ben-Gurion Airport and eventually received a "good Arab" certificate, a general fast-track passport control certificate issued by the Israel Airports Authority. He said he took 53 flights in some years.
The Collaborative Dimension
Haick's research success depends on international collaboration. Prof. Silke Christiansen, a physicist at the Free University of Berlin, began collaborating with Haick 17 years ago after he contacted her about silicon nanowires. Her team produced the nanowires, and Haick arranged them in sensor arrays and functionalized them. The densely packed nanowires carry different molecular coatings that respond to substances in the air, creating patterns used to identify VOCs.
Prof. Tal Dvir, who researches tissue and organ engineering at Tel Aviv University, said the task is complex because the molecules occur at extremely low concentrations and must be distinguished amid background noise and masking effects. Each sensor is tailored to a target molecule, he said, and Haick has developed sensors for a range of applications.
Prof. Sylvia Cohen-Kaminsky, a pulmonary arterial hypertension specialist at Paris-Saclay University, said she met Haick after reading about his research in Le Monde and suggested applying it to the disease. The two established an international laboratory that operated for eight years. Cohen-Kaminsky said initial results showed the electronic nose could distinguish patients from controls and identify people with a genetic mutation that increased susceptibility. The research did not progress beyond those results after the researchers failed to secure follow-up funding.
Prof. Jonathan Sleeman, a cancer biology researcher at Heidelberg University, said clinical validation would require large patient groups and that researchers must establish whether VOC signals are sufficiently specific, since multiple disease states might produce the same positive result. He is participating in a trial of the approach. "The arguments he presents are compelling, but that has to be shown in the real world, and that's where we're going," Sleeman said.
Future Applications
Haick's goal is "personalized, precise, noninvasive medicine," with diagnosis tailored to individuals and their environments. He envisions a patch that could monitor physiological and chemical signals, detect changes from fatigue and dehydration to viral infection or early signs of cancer or Parkinson's, and eventually deliver tailored drugs through a small cartridge. Animal experiments testing the principle of real-time treatment adjustment had produced promising initial results.
Over the previous five years, Technion researchers won six grants to lead consortia, three headed by Haick; Israel Innovation Authority figures showed Israeli researchers received 58 such grants in total over that period. Before then, Haick led five other successful consortia studying colorectal cancer, melanoma and lung diseases, among other conditions. He said applications had a success rate of 2% to 3%. Commercial use of patches for lung cancer, tuberculosis and hormonal changes in women could begin within a few years, while full clinical validation, regulation, industrial production and market introduction would take longer.
Why This Matters: Haick's work demonstrates how scientific excellence transcends the region's political divisions. His patches address a genuine global health gap: populations without access to advanced diagnostics or stable electricity grids now have a path to early disease detection at minimal cost. The international collaboration required—from Berlin to Paris to Abu Dhabi to California—shows how innovation flourishes when researchers prioritize merit and scientific rigor over ideology. His success also reflects Israel's capacity to produce world-class biomedical innovation from within a diverse academic environment that recruits talent across ethnic and religious lines. As biosensor technology matures, the economic and humanitarian implications extend far beyond the Middle East, offering practical tools for disease management in exactly the populations and settings where international development efforts have struggled most.