(MED) The Israeli Scientist Who Is Sniffing Out Cancer

"Nazareth native Dr. Hossam Haick is one of the world's leading scientists; he explains how he came up with his idea of detecting cancer via breath tests.

Every time Dr. Hossam Haick - only 35 and one of the most brilliant scientists to come out of Israel - is invited to attend a scientific conference abroad, he is taken aside at Ben-Gurion International Airport and subjected to a rigmarole of questions and interrogations. 'I told the security people that I am a scientist who represents the State of Israel, and that they ought to show me more respect, but it did not help. Only after I went to the media and to Knesset members, and I made noise, they gave me a VIP card and the harassment stopped.'

Despite the fact that Haick, a Christian Arab, is an icon in the scientific and academic world, and oversees dozens of scientists around the globe from his office at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, he is practically unknown on the Israeli street. Among other honors, in 2008 he was included in the TR35, a list of the world's top 35 young scientists created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's journal Technology Review."