The Media Line: From Sniffing Cancer to Printing Organs: How Biology and Tech Are Colliding in Israel  

From Sniffing Cancer to Printing Organs: How Biology and Tech Are Colliding in Israel  

Research released by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2020 found that biology-based innovations are expected to generate between $2 trillion and $4 trillion in direct economic impact between 2030 and 2040  

By Maayan Hoffman/The Media Line  

Cancer can leave a trace long before a scan or blood test detects it. Sometimes, that trace is in something as ordinary as a breath. 

Human breath contains more than 1,000 volatile organic compounds, many of which reflect metabolic processes within the body. Certain diseases, including cancer, are associated with distinct odor patterns created by these compounds. Now, an Israeli company is turning that biological signal into a new way to screen for cancer, using scent, science, and an unexpected partner: beagles. 

Spot It Early has developed a screening test designed to detect several common cancers, including lung, prostate, breast, and colorectal cancer, using a person’s breath, a simple medical mask, and trained canines. The approach is based on the idea that dogs possess extraordinary sensory abilities, allowing them to detect cancer-related odor signatures in breath samples almost instantly. 

The process begins at home. An individual wears a specially designed breath-collection mask for about 3 minutes while breathing normally. The mask is then sealed and sent to the company’s laboratory for analysis. 

There, the sample is evaluated using a system that brings together biological sensing and advanced data analysis. The dogs are exposed to the breath samples, while a technology platform monitors hundreds of physiological and behavioral signals in real time. Those responses are then analyzed using proprietary algorithms to determine whether the scent patterns are consistent with cancer. The result is a screening assessment that aims to identify cancer at a much earlier stage than many existing methods. 

According to a company-conducted clinical study, the accuracy rate was 94.8%. 

“Our vision is a future where everyone is in the know, all from the comfort of their own home by having access to a single, accurate, and affordable screening test for multiple types of cancer,” the company said in a promotional video. “Each and every one of us now has the chance to catch cancer in its early stages and beat it before it beats us.” 

It may sound like science fiction, or at least the premise of a movie, but the technology is already being tested in the real world. With support from the Israel Innovation Authority and in partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Health, Spot It Early is currently running additional clinical trials. If successful, those trials could pave the way for regulatory approval and significantly alter how cancer is detected. 

 

“This intricate world of AI for biotech is really only just beginning,” said Dr. Shai Melcer, head of the Bio-convergence program for TELEM, the National Infrastructure Forum for Research and Development. As more biological data becomes available, he said, “the different types of markets that are being generated are very, very interesting.” 

Melcer spoke to The Media Line during a foreign press briefing at the Israel Innovation Authority’s offices in Tel Aviv earlier this week. He noted that the cancers Spot It Early focuses on are often diagnosed too late for full recovery.  

“Beagles have been known to sense many, many, many different compounds. You sometimes see them running around big places like airports. They’re trying to find drugs. They’re trying to find explosives. Those are just volatile compounds that are very small in volume. It’s the same in cancer,” Melcer said.  

He added that the Health Ministry is assisting with the clinical trial design and that the American Food and Drug Administration is closely following the results. 

“How well these trials are being conducted and what the results are will change the way cancer is being detected worldwide,” he said. “You have biology, you use it. You have engineering, you use it. You have computation, you use it. You take the best of the best, combine them, and you save many people’s lives. It is really that simple.” 

Except that it is not simple at all.  

The work is part of Israel’s national bio-convergence initiative, a concept coined decades ago but formally embraced within Israeli innovation only in 2024, when Melcer was appointed to lead the program. Since then, bio-convergence has become central to much of the research funded by the authority, driven not only by a 10-year government commitment but also by its relevance across industries, from healthcare and the environment to food and agriculture. 

In Israel, high tech is considered the country’s largest export sector. Despite more than two years of war, 2025 marked the industry’s strongest financial year ever for money flowing into the economy through high-tech deals. Total deal volume surpassed $111 billion, driven by major transactions such as Google’s acquisition of Wiz and Palo Alto Networks’ purchase of CyberArk. 

Beyond headline-grabbing deals, Israel is also home to a large concentration of international companies that have established research and development centers there, including Microsoft and Facebook. They did so, Melcer said, “for very good reasons.” 

“We do things swiftly. We do them efficiently. For many years, we did them relatively cheaply. We don’t do them as cheaply as we used to, but we’re still very much getting the job done,” he said. 

Yet another factor that sets Israel apart and directly feeds into the bio-convergence program is its academic ecosystem. 

 

“The number of companies, the number of entrepreneurs, the number of unicorns that come, and the money raised from IP generated in Israeli academia is way, way up,” Melcer said. “So when you look at what we call the zero point axis, where things start, this is where the magic begins. So the excellent research, the excellent development, actually comes from science-based research.” 

Melcer noted that roughly a quarter of Israel’s PhD graduates are in biology-related fields, totaling about 500 each year. On a per capita basis, Israel is a global leader in the number of trained biologists. Today, however, only about one-third of them enter the industry, while the rest become what he described as “underutilized assets.”  

One of the core goals of the bio-convergence program is to change that trajectory. 

The economic potential is significant. Research released by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2020 found that biology-based innovations are expected to generate between $2 trillion and $4 trillion in direct economic impact between 2030 and 2040. 

About five years ago, Israel’s Health Ministry began recognizing the shift underway and began reviewing its regulatory framework to ensure it was neither overly restrictive nor overly permissive. 

“The regulatory framework needs to be as good and as strict as other regulatory frameworks throughout the world, so that you’re on par with global regulators, but you have to have an environment that allows for innovators to move forward within those restrictions,” Melcer said. 

He explained that the ministry, once largely inward-focused, is now far more attuned to the needs of the high-tech, biotech, and food-tech sectors. It is working more proactively with the US Food and Drug Administration, European regulators, and others to align standards and coordinate regulatory efforts across borders. 

If the FDA approves a product, the Health Ministry will review it and is likely to approve it for use in Israel as well. Increasingly, however, the process works in both directions. The ministry is now taking cues from international regulators to ensure that Israeli clinical trial designs meet global endpoints. If those endpoints are reached, Melcer said, the FDA may accept the trial data as sufficient for its own approval process. 

Similar efforts, he added, are taking place within Israel’s patent system. 

In recent years, Israel has already seen striking examples of regulatory innovation, including authorization for the sale of the world’s first cultured milk product and, shortly afterward, cultured beef. 

Melcer pointed to additional examples of bio-convergence at work, including an Israeli company developing self-restorative concrete and another working on self-repairing glass that incorporates proteins into the material, allowing it to heal itself if it breaks. 

 

Perhaps one of the most recognizable bio-convergence examples in Israel, however, is Precise Bio, a company specializing in 3D bioprinting human tissue. 

Precise Bio was the first company in the world to 3D print a cornea. Three months ago, Israel became the first country in the world to transplant that cornea into a patient at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. 

The challenge, Melcer explained, is producing tissue at clinical-grade levels. In the case of corneal transplants, the potential impact is significant. Traditional cornea donations operate on a one-to-one ratio, with each donated cornea helping a single patient. Precise Bio, by contrast, takes donor corneas, isolates the endothelial cells, expands them through growth, and prints them onto specially designed polymers optimized for optics, structure, and durability.  

That process could increase the ratio from one donor to anywhere between four and 500 recipients. As a result, waiting lists could shrink dramatically, and fewer patients would lose their sight while waiting for a transplant. In addition, Melcer said, the resulting cornea may actually be superior to a traditional transplant. 

So what comes next? 

Melcer said the company is now working toward printing a cardiac patch. 

Scar tissue, he explained, is a significant challenge in cardiology. Not only does it fail to heal correctly, but it can also cause further damage to the heart. A regenerative patch placed over scar tissue could help strengthen the heart and speed recovery. 

“Where do you get tissue to patch over a heart?” Melcer asked. Unlike skin grafts, he said, cardiac tissue cannot simply be borrowed from another part of the body. Precise Bio is exploring a solution for 3D-printed heart patches, potentially using cells taken directly from the patient. Those cells could be reprogrammed, grown in a lab, and printed into a patch explicitly tailored to that individual. Once implanted, the patch would integrate with the heart, allowing patients to recover more quickly and return to everyday life sooner than would otherwise be possible. 

It is a vision that captures the promise of bio-convergence itself: biology, engineering, and computation working together, not as theory, but as medicine already moving from the lab into the clinic. 

Photo: Dr. Shai Melcer 

Credit: Maayan Hoffman/The Media Line