As the Chief Science Officer at medical research firm Owlstone Medical in Cambridge, UK, Max Allsworth, Ph.D., is a pioneer in deciphering details from the body’s breath to uncover diseases within.
Allsworth has spent over 25 years developing technology that reads the chemical elements in the air we breathe. With over a dozen patents in fields including spectrometry and sensor technology, his latest work focuses on developing a breathonomics database. This catalog of biomarkers, known as the Breath Biopsy VOC Atlas, are pulled from the air exhaled as we breathe and could help other scientists detect early disease. Another recent patent, awarded in March, relates to the Breath Biopsy, which will be at DOC 2025, a handheld portable device fitted to someone’s mouth that analyzes the output of someone’s breath through sensors, and capable of uncovering more than 1,000 VOC (volatile organic compounds) biomarkers.
Accessing these VOCs by capturing someone’s breath could give clinicians more tools in offering their patients care. Air in the lungs absorbs VOCs traveling through the blood circulating every minute. These VOCs can serve as clues about mechanisms at play in the body. For example, one VOC, limonene, naturally found in lemons, limes, and other citrus, is detectable at higher levels in the breath in people with liver disease. Tuberculosis, a contagious disease, alters VOCs in the breath from bacteria linked to the infection. This means reading someone’s breath could serve as an alternate or additional test to x-rays and blood screenings typically used in diagnosing these diseases.
Allsworth brings a diverse scientific background to his work, encompassing material science, chemistry, and physics, a Ph.D. in condensed matter and material physics, and The MacRobert Award, the UK award for engineering and innovation.
We are delighted that Dr. Allsworth has joined our DOC 2025 Faculty and hope you’ll join us in welcoming him to our DOC community.