SBIR Phase I: Environmental water on site microbial contaminant sensor

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is that the product developed will enable local and remote environmental water microbe detection using internet-enabled smart devices. Detection is on-site within 30 minutes to monitor water close to the time it is sampled compared to current methods that require sending the sample to lab that conducts a test that takes 24 hours. The innovation involves a method to capture and concentrate genes from large volumes of water onto a unique binding material where they are counted. Clean water is critical to major economic sectors such as farm irrigation, livestock, food processing, and recreation and water testing is estimated to be a 1.2 billion dollar global market. The water test developed could be used in global settings and have a significant societal impact through improved water quality management especially in rural or developing country settings where is estimated that 780 million people consume unsafe water. The technical objectives in this Phase I research project are to advance a highly innovative technical approach for direct in the field detection of E. coli or Enterococcus contaminants in 100 milliliters of environmental water with results available in 30 minutes. These microbes are traditional indicator organisms that identify water with fecal contamination that could be unsafe. The technical hurdle addressed in this project which is finding low copies of bacteria present in a glass of water is not unique to water testing but is also an issue broadly anywhere pathogens or genes are a targets of detection. The research objectives to be completed will confirm our innovative strategy to release nucleic acids from cells, characterize fundamental properties of solid phase materials capable of capture and concentration of nucleic acids, and produce a prototype flow through cassette where specific gene sequences are detected. Achieving detection of pathogens that frequently are present in low copy numbers in large volumes (100 milliliters of environmental water, 10 milliliters of blood, food processing wash water, etc.) is a common technical hurdle that limits assay sensitivity. The innovative approach proposed provides a potential solution to this issue and further permits testing directly on site with a low cost, non-instrumented test that is easy to perform with result upload using a cell phone. The integrated strategy is a novel approach that overcomes the limitations of all current culture or current molecular methods for testing environmental water.