NOSAÏS, established in 2020, is a French non-profit organisation dedicated to scientific research on biomedical detection dogs and the benefits they bring to the human medical industry.

Dogs have an incredible olfactory sense and memory, providing them the ability to detect a non-exhaustive list of diseases, opening up an exciting and ongoing topic of conversation.

NOSAÏS began in France, then expanded to the UAE through collaboration with the Ministry of Interior and Dubai Police, experiencing resounding success with their dogs accurate detection of the Covid-19 virus during the pandemic from sweat samples and undertaking trainings on breath samples from used face masks to further increase the sensitivity and specificity of this detection in the following years.

The dogs working with the NOSAÏS team are all family dogs, who are taught this life changing method of human disease detection as play, keeping them motivated and focused. The NOSAÏS training principles are designed so that when the dog independently locates the affected sample, they are rewarded with food or toy  – this is known as positive reinforcement. The dogs are also trained to inform the team when no positive result is detected in a sample line and even to show the team that they want a little break!

Right now the integral work is conducted at Alfort National School of Veterinary Medicine (close to Paris), with the NOSAÏS Institute being opened in the near future in a region north of Paris (Oise).

The team hopes that within a few years of proving the efficacy of this alternative scientific approach, it can convince health administrations to allow trained family dogs to enter early detection programs for both chronic (proliferative or degenerative) diseases, but also in cases of an eventual new viral pandemic.