New 'biosensor' screens Air Force personnel and equipment for contamination - within minutes

Air Force personnel will soon know within minutes if they or their equipment are contaminated with a biological agent, thanks to a new technology developed by the Air Force and a national laboratory.
Personnel will use the biosensor system to collect and isolate samples, detect and identify agents, and assess the seriousness of the threat.

Image: The DNA Capture Element instrument was developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the Air Force Research Laboratory. The "green box" is used to process samples of agents – in a matter of minutes – to determine if they are or aren't harmful.

"The system will provide an increased capability for Air Force Special Operations personnel to rapidly determine the presence of biological warfare agents in a combat environment," said Dr. Richard Stotts, counterproliferation branch chief within the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate. The device is compact, quickly identifies agents, can be used repeatedly and requires very little maintenance to keep it running in the field."

The system consists of a spray, developed at the directorate's Brooks City-Base, Texas, facilities, and a hand-held "green box," which determines if agents are present. The green box, or DNA Capture Element instrument, was developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The box uses an Air Force-developed biochemical assay based on aptamers, or single chain DNA fragments.

"We've used our lab's expertise to develop an instrument that's complementary to the Air Force's technology and that simultaneously satisfies the speed, specificity, sensitivity, portability, durability, health and safety needs," said Mike Lind, a senior advisor at PNNL. "The rapid detection capability of this instrument will be useful in a variety of applications, even outside of the armed forces."

With the prototype system, the user sprays the suspected contaminated area, creating a sample that can be picked up by a swab. The sample material on the swab is suspended in liquid by rinsing it in a container. Once in a liquid form, the sample is injected into a special flow cell, the place where the assay occurs.

The flow cell is currently designed for one-time use. Since the cell is sealed, it can be decontaminated by immersion in a bleach solution and then safely transported to a forensic laboratory for further analysis where it can be opened to retrieve the sample material.

A liquid crystal display, or LCD, provides a quantitative readout of the concentration of targeted material present, and a set of red, yellow, and green light emitting diodes provides an easily interpreted reading of the threat level. For instance, "no threat" is green, a barely detectable to medium level of an agent is one or two yellow dots, and a high detection level is red.

The biosensor system is designed to be reliable, disposable and cost-effective. The Air Force will continue testing the device over the next several months.

Source: PNNL

Related stories:

UCLA study of satellite imagery casts doubt on surge's success in Baghdad
By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained.
Spitzer Reveals Stellar "Family Tree"
A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells a tale of life and death, and reveals a rich family history. The striking infrared picture shows a colorful cosmic cloud, called W5, studded with multiple generations of blazing stars.
Giant Atmospheric Waves Over Iowa
Pop quiz: define undular bore. If your answer included words such as dull or tiresome, i.e., boring, think again. Or better yet, click on the image below to see an undular bore in action.
New material concept for aircraft wings could save billions
Building aircraft wings with a special aluminium fibre combination makes them nearly immune to metal fatigue. The application of this technology, partly developed at Delft University of Technology, will lead to substantial savings.
Salmon garnish points the way to green electronics
Professor Andrew Steckl, a leading expert in light-emitting diodes, is intensifying the properties of LEDs by introducing biological materials, specifically salmon DNA.
Green skies: Engineer's work may reduce jet travel's role in global warming
Princeton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Fred Dryer has a lofty goal: end the nation's reliance on oil for jet travel.
Two Nanostructures Are Better Than One
Imagine using minuscule structures the size of molecules to harvest sunlight and convert it into electricity. Or employing the same structures to store hydrogen fuel so that it fits into a car’s gas tank. Or replacing today’s semiconductors with these structures, ushering in the next generation of small, powerful electronics.
Probing Question: How do dimples make golf balls travel farther?
A golfer's worst enemy may be divots, but his or her best friend may be dimples -- the dimples on a golf ball that send it sailing farther down the fairway.

News discussion:

Technology news