Technion Prof Gets Award, Makes Most Influential List

March 20, 2016 | This weekend Professor Hossam Haick of the Technion received the Humboldt Research Award in Germany and was also selected as one of the 100 influential figures published by GOOD Magazine. The Humboldt, awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, is given to prominent researchers who have significantly influenced their fields of study. It is granted in recognition of a researcher’s achievements as a whole – discoveries, theories, and insights. Prof. Haick, a member of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering and a member of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, received the award for his tremendous contribution to the diagnosis of diseases through innovative markers that he discovered in his research at the Technion. These are markers that are present in the breath and skin. At the same time as the announcement about the Humboldt Award, Prof. Haick was included in the list of the world’s 100 most influential people published by GOOD Magazine in Los Angeles. The list includes people from 37 countries who contribute to the welfare of humankind in various aspects, including science, education, and business.  Prof. Hossam Haick earned his doctorate in the field of energy and only later switched to biomedical technology. His unique development, an inexpensive and noninvasive system for diagnosing diseases based on breath, was inspired by dogs, who know how to identify disease but not to tell the person what disease he has. Haick developed a digital system that accurately diagnoses the disease and its stage of development. Currently he is working on several aspects of the system, including diagnosis of additional diseases and an interface that connects it to a smartphone.