Breath gas analysis
In the last decades, the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled air has been studied and further developed as a promising approach for the identification of biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of various diseases. One of the main advantages of this procedure is its non-invasive approach. This is particularly important for populations such as children and the elderly, and for diseases whose current standard diagnoses use invasive techniques such as biopsies and bronchoscopies or imaging based on ionizing radiation. Despite the advantages of this strategy, breath analysis is not yet a routine clinical tool. Standard clinical procedures have not yet been sufficiently established and validated, especially when it comes to identifying suitable biomarkers.
In our breath gas research, we offer topics in the following directions:
- Offline and online analysis of exhaled air from healthy volunteers and patients
- Disease-specfic biomarker identification (e.g. for lung disorders, mental disorders, stress-related markers and many more)
- Analysis of VOCs in in vitro cell culture systems and tissue-engineered tumor models
- Characterization of skin VOCs related to the homeostasis of the skin barrier
- Data-driven modeling based on machine- and deep learning methods for feature extraction and biomarker identification
We offer topics for bachelor and master thesis projects for students of various engineering disciplines (e.g. biosystems engineering, molecular biosystems, medical systems engineering, data science, engineering cybernetics etc.). If you are interested, please contact Dr.-Ing. Melanie Fachet by e-mail and provide the following information: short CV, transcript of academic records, areas of interest and desired starting date.
