SBIR Phase I: Combating Pathogens, Helios-1 Onsite Universal Detection

SBIR 第一阶段：对抗病原体，Helios-1 现场通用检测

• 批准号: 2304483
• 负责人: Darrell Marshall
• 金额: $ 27.5万
• 依托单位: TOTAL ANALYSIS L.L.C.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2304483&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Combating; Pathogens; Helios

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is protection against pathogen-related infections. Currently, detection tests for pathological agents are laborious, time-consuming, expensive, and require advanced technical expertise to conduct. The proposed portable, onsite pathogen detector will allow for fast, specific, sensitive, and cost-effective pathogen tests that can be conducted with minimal personnel training and equipment. The solution is intended to be used at healthcare centers, transport nodes, defense facilities, and any other site where the spread of infectious diseases is a possibility. This technology will benefit the population’s health and welfare, by facilitating the implementation of pathogen detection routines that reduce the risk of large-scale infections. Such infections disproportionally affect under-represented groups. The solution will also improve the national defense against bioterrorism, since the proposed technology could be as standard as a typical metal detector used in large, populated venues, on the battlefield protecting troops, or at airports to keep the traveling public safe. The nation’s economic competitiveness may also improve, since the proposed solution could mitigate and even avoid the economic consequences of a health crisis.The proposed project seeks to prove that Matrix Assisted Ionization can be coupled with Ion-Mobility Spectrometry (MAI-IMS) for pathogen detection and identification. The recent pandemic outbreak has demonstrated the necessity of rapid, on-site, and accurate pathogen detection devices. The proposed method is to use the existing IMS technology and modify it to detect pathogens by fabricating a Matrix assisted ionization vault (Helios-1) that overcomes the biomolecule volatility restriction of all current ion mobility spectrometers. A crucial technical hurdle is finding the device's optimal ionization and operational environment. To overcome this challenge, the most similar conditions to mass spectrometry must be found, which will involve experimental tests to determine the adequate environmental conditions and the engineering modifications of the MAI extension chamber to adapt IMS for non-volatile biomolecule detection. Standardize organism sample conditions and protocols are also needed. This challenge represents a critical step to prevent variation caused by the extraction of the sampling procedure. This challenge will be tackled by testing different extraction procedures until they meet the criteria for satisfactory performance. Additionally, machine learning algorithms will be employed for pathogen recognition. All of the above will help prove the feasibility of the proposed MAI-IMS-based pathogen detection and identification platform.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该小型企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第一阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响是防止病原体相关感染。目前，病理因子的检测测试费力、耗时、昂贵，并且需要先进的技术专业知识才能进行。便携式现场病原体检测器将允许快速、特异、灵敏且经济高效的病原体检测，只需最少的人员培训和设备即可进行该解决方案旨在用于医疗中心、运输节点、国防设施和任何场所。其他传染病容易传播的场所这项技术将通过促进病原体检测程序的实施来降低大规模感染的风险，从而有益于人口的健康和福祉。该解决方案还将改善针对生物恐怖主义的国防。因为所提出的技术可以像典型的金属探测器一样标准，用于大型、人口稠密的场所、战场上保护部队或机场，以确保旅行公众的安全，因为所提出的解决方案可以减轻风险。甚至避免拟议的项目旨在证明基质辅助电离可以与离子淌度光谱法 (MAI-IMS) 结合起来进行病原体检测和识别，最近的大流行爆发证明了快速现场检测的必要性。以及精确的病原体检测装置，所提出的方法是利用现有的IMS技术并对其进行修改，通过制造基质辅助电离库（Helios-1）来检测病原体，克服了当前所有离子淌度的生物分子挥发性限制。一个关键的技术障碍是找到设备的最佳电离和操作环境，为了克服这一挑战，必须找到与质谱仪最相似的条件，这将涉及实验测试以确定适当的环境条件和 MAI 的工程修改。还需要使 IMS 适应非挥发性生物分子检测的扩展室，这一挑战是防止采样过程引起的变化的关键步骤。直到他们此外，机器学习算法将用于病原体识别，所有这些都将有助于证明所提出的基于 MAI-IMS 的病原体检测和识别平台的可行性。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并具有通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。