A Novel Fractionation and Concentration System for Improved Biological Detection

Detection of bioaerosols is a cornerstone in the protection of our nation from bioterrorist and pandemic events. Rapid bioaerosol detection systems have advanced dramatically in recent years, but the lack of integratable automated sample preparation for these systems remains a major deficiency. Three significant issues are (a) a lack of an interface between large environmental samples and sample preparation and detection components requiring very small volumes, (b) deficiencies in removing inhibitory environmental material and (c) an inability to separate, and thus, differentiate whole pathogens from exogenous materials derived from those pathogens. InnovaPrep is developing a novel membrane-based fractionation and concentration system capable of removing inhibitors and separating whole pathogens and exogenous materials into two highly-concentrated volumes. The proposed system will be exceedingly rapid; with the capability to fractionate, prepare, and concentrate 10 milliliter environmental aerosol samples (without sample splitting) into 100 microliter volumes in less than 15 minutes, and deliver the samples ready for identification. The system will be composed of updatable snap-together modules that can be operated as-needed for different systems, providing separately concentrated nucleic acids and proteins from free solution and from whole cells . A portion of the viable whole cells will also be archived by the system. All disposable components in the modules will have operational lifetimes of up to hundreds of samples, thereby allowing for straightforward integration into autonomous biodetection systems. The system being developed here is applicable to multibillion dollar commercial and government markets that are growing at a rate of 18.3 percent.