Bacterial spore-detection system

NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed a bacterial spore-detection system for Mars-bound spacecraft that can also recognize anthrax and other harmful, spore-forming bacteria on Earth and alert people of the impending danger. 

New reagentless, E-Field based samphng approaches have been developed and integrated with conventional ATR-FTIR flow cells for the detection and identification of bacterial spores in water. Our results show how E-field concentration of spores onto the surface of an ATR crystal surface can enable low concentrations of spores to be measured. The collection cells are designed for easy interface with virtually any IR spectrometer or detection system, and can prove usefirl in a variety of military, homeland defense, and technological apphcations. 

Chen F, Kuhlman G, Kirshner L, Matsuyama A, Sage A, Pickett M, Venkateswaran K Kem R. Sensitivity and qrplicability of a r id microbial detection system in the enumeration of bacterial spores. 104 Annual Meeting of Amaican Society for Microbiology, New Orleans, May 2004. Q4)83 page 519. 

Stachowiak et al. [138] coupled an automated sample preparation (ASP) system to a chip gel electrophoresis protein profiling (CGE-PP) system to execute an autonomous microfluidic sample preparation and detection of aerosolized bacterial cells and spores on the basis of protein profiling. The combined system, which was field-deployable, was capable of differentiating between bacterial organisms. It operated by collecting... 

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