Development of Nanofibrous Membranes Towards Biological Sensing

Abstract : Homeland Security and the Veterinary Services Activity, Office Of The Surgeon General (VSA, OTSG) have identified food as potential instruments for covert acts of bioterrorism involving Chem/Bio agents. Therefore, VSA, OTSG has established the need to develop technologies that can be used in the presumptive screening of food to minimize the health effects on the warfighter. Currently, there are no deployable biological detection capabilities that are truly rapid when sample preparation is included in the detection process. The complexity of food matrices makes its very difficult to analyze directly by modern day PCR and immunoassays systems, no matter how sensitive, without first diluting and removing interfering substances inherent to the food products. The result is that the concentration of the biological agent introduced into the analyzer may be so dilute that the instrument cannot detect it even though its presences is at concentrations that can cause human illness or death. This is why the testing of bacterial agents from food usually requires a 24-hour enrichment step, which defeats the purpose of rapid detection built into these new biosensor type technologies. Also, biological toxins, as opposed to live agents, cannot be replicated by enrichment. Dilution of toxins from a food matrix may produce a false negative test delaying the actual identification of the toxin until after the effects have already occurred.