Cryptosporidium Detection System

The Phase I objective is to develop a compact, low-cost, easy-to-use system for the rapid detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts. Two key innovations provide the foundation for Ciencia, Inc.'s system: (1) a dielectrophoretic field-flow-fractionation method to replace current filtering and centrifugation methods to concentrate the sample and remove nontarget organisms or nonbiological debris, and (2) direct fluorescent immunoassay detection using a novel type of fluorescent label that should result in a sensitivity improvement of the order of 104 over that of conventional fluorescent immunoassays. Fluorescence excitation will be provided by single quantum well light-emitting diodes. This will result in a low-cost, compact instrument of very low power consumption. These innovations can be used to improve current laboratory-based procedures for Cryptosporidium detection, but more importantly, they can be exploited to implement portable devices for rapid onsite detection, and offer the potential of implementation of online sensors