A Novel MEMS for Rapid Biocontamination Assessment on Flight Hardware

The need to protect Earth from extra-terrestrial contamination, and vice versa, is a growing concern as space flight missions extend into unfamiliar planetary atmospheres. Whereas the transport of biological contamination during space flight missions could pose extreme global threats, reliable sterilization and subsequent validation procedures need to be developed. The proposed technology aims to provide a reliable, real-time sampling and analysis device for the assessment of biocontamination levels on space flight hardware. Hydrodynamic removal of biological contaminants from a surface will be achieved using a microfluidic device that will electrokinetically deliver the sampled material to a reaction reservoir. On-chip electroporation will be utilized to release the genetic material, followed by the selective amplification of mRNA from viable organisms. Hybridization of the amplified genetic material to nucleic acid modified electrodes will generate an electrochemical current that will indicate the presence of specific biological contaminants. In essence, this novel microelectromechanical system (MEMS) will perform automated sampling, selective target amplification, and electrochemical analysis in order to provide rapid, quantitative information regarding the presence of biocontamination on flight hardware. In the Phase I, the feasibility of this innovation to efficiently sample surfaces for biological contamination will be demonstrated.