A Portable, Ultrasensitive Biological Agent Sensor

The research proposed herein is designed to validate the critical technologies required to implement a miniaturized, portable biological agent sensor with 1,000-fold higher sensitivity than prior art devices. This sensor is based on the proprietary Multi Photon Detection (MPD) technology developed by BioTraces, Inc. When used with the Super IRMA assay developed by BioTraces, MPD has enabled the detection and measurement of biological substances at the femtogram/ml level. The objective of this research is to develop MPD instrumentation and SuperIRMA protocols for low power, autonomous operation in field environments. This will include the development of compact air sampling and sample preparation systems based on magnetic bead technology, the use of reliable and rugged solid state photodetectors to replace current PMT detectors, and a dedicated digital signal processor implementation of the MPD background rejection algorithm.