Patent paves way to ‘revolutionize’ tobacco emissions testing

The patent for a tool designed by College of Public Health Research Professor Marielle Brinkman to improve testing of e-cigarettes and other electronic and combustible tobacco products was accepted this month — marking a significant personal and professional milestone for the research team.

Brinkman has dreamed of becoming an inventor since she was four years old and saw Dick Van Dyke’s workshop in the movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” she said.

“Although a flying car was a pretty marvelous thing for him to invent, I am hoping that the Universal Smoking Machine Adaptor will truly revolutionize tobacco product emissions testing, ultimately providing the evidence needed for sound regulatory policies that support increased public health around the world,” she said.

The Universal Smoking Machine Adaptor was developed by Brinkman and Theodore L. Wagener, professor at the College of Medicine and director of Ohio State’s Center for Tobacco Research. It is designed to work seamlessly with smoking machines that have been used for decades in tobacco product emissions testing. Mimicking human behavior, the machines “puff” on a cigarette and capture the smoke, which is then analyzed. The team submitted the patent in 2023.

Cerulean, a global producer of smoking and vaping machines, licensed the universal smoking adaptor in 2025. This opened the door to widespread use, enabling experts to gain a better understanding of how products impact human health.

Brinkman and Assistant Professor Ahmad El Hellani were awarded funding last fall to conduct a study focused on emissions testing variability across labs. This work is expected to generate critical data needed for the adaptor to be incorporated into standardized tobacco product testing.

Read more about the history of this project and why testing evolving tobacco products poses a challenge for researchers.