Field Drug Identification Kit

Illicit drug trafficking has increasingly been used to fund terrorist groups since the end of the Cold War. As illicit drugs increasingly finance terrorism, soldiers in the U.S. Army are increasingly playing an active role in identifying these drugs in difficult and demanding environments. Unfortunately, these devices have many shortcomings, such as being too expensive, bulky and heavy, being non-ruggedized, requiring a high level of training, only being able to detect a single drug and being prone to false-positives. As such, there is a great need for a technology that overcomes all of these shortcomings and also fit in with the leaner, smarter, more lethal and agile Army as defined by the Armys Force 25 and Beyond strategy. In this project, SensoDx Inc. is developing its Programmable Bio-Nano-Chip (p-BNC) technology that will permit detection of illicit drugs in the field. During Phase I, the potential suitability of the p-BNC platform for field-based detection and identification of drugs will be demonstrated, through the development of proof-of-concept of a p-BNC multiplexed prototype assay for three target drug analytes, representative of three classes of drugs: JWH-018 (synthetic cannabinoid), methamphetamine (phenethylamines), and morphine (opiates).