Utilizing animal VOC emissions to identify emerging zoonotic diseases — IABR Breath Summit 2025

McCartney MM, Hicks TL, Freeman JME, Borras E, Rojas DE, Coil D, Johnson CK, Davis CE. Utilizing animal VOC emissions to identify emerging zoonotic diseases and to prevent spillover into human populations: A pilot study. Breath Summit 2025; Innsbruck, Austria.

Introduction: Effectively predicting and preventing future pandemics remains one of the greatest global health challenges. Most emerging infectious diseases originate from wildlife, and human-driven environmental changes are increasing the likelihood of zoonotic spillover. Despite this growing risk, wildlife populations are rarely monitored for early signs of disease. Recent advances in chemical sensing and AI/ML technologies offer a promising, non-invasive way to detect disease-associated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in wildlife environments, enabling continuous, remote surveillance of emerging health threats. We hypothesize that portable and remote chemical sensors could help monitor the health status of animal populations, and flag physiological shifts that may indicate an emerging infectious disease. In this work, we present pilot approaches for collecting VOC emissions from animals in controlled settings, under managed care.