Rugged Compact Easy to Use Water Tester

Z-Field Technologies will provide a water tester at point-of-need that will meet all requirements of this topic.  It will be a durable piece of equipment that is able to withstand travel and ground movement while simultaneously providing rapid results on microbiological health threats and metal exposures. The proposed system is designed to provide essential capabilities for detecting coliforms in point-of-need situations. It will be fast, compact, and rugged. The instrument and the disposables will be cost effective, easy to operate and require only minimal training. This project has a head start for meeting the requirements of RFA provided by technical approaches in three areas; 1) Sample prep. The Simpleprep™ system is poised already to address the needs. It is compact, rapid, rugged, and cost effective. It has an efficiency yield of 70% or more and concentrates 20 to 50 fold. It incorporates bead beating that disrupts cells facilitating a high yield of Nucleic acids. It is very simple to operate. 2) Amplification is driven by LAMP, the fastest and most popular of the isothermal methods. It is superior in specificity and can be made to multiplex. 3) The gel-based system provides absolute quantification, obviating any need for a calibration curve, simplifying the design of the disposable, the instrument, and the software. Finally, this platform would enable adaptation for immunofluorescent detection of heavy metals.