Mimicking the olfactory capability of the dog in sniffing out explosives, and even the presence of cancer, researchers at several universities, the Monell Chemical Senses Center (Philadelphia, PA) and Nanosenses (Redwood City, CA) have developed a bioelectronic hybrid device that combines nanotube-based transistors and olfactory receptor proteins.  According to the report: “the researchers began by purifying ORs [olfactory receptors] from cells and then solubilized them in two distinct nanoscale constructs: digitonin micelles and engineered, stable, self-assembling nanoscale membrane assemblies known as nanodiscs. Then, they attached these solubilized ORs via a polyhistidine tag to high-quality nanotube transistors that were previously functionalized with nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid.”   MORE