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

这一小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响是预防病原体相关感染。目前，病原体的检测测试费时、费力、费用高，需要先进的技术专业知识才能进行。拟议的便携式现场病原体检测器将允许进行快速、特异、敏感和成本效益高的病原体测试，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、交通节点、国防设施和任何其他可能传播传染病的地点。这项技术将促进病原体检测程序的实施，从而降低大规模感染的风险，从而使人们的健康和福利受益。这种感染不成比例地影响到代表不足的群体。该解决方案还将改善针对生物恐怖主义的国防，因为拟议的技术可能与用于大型人口稠密场所、战场保护部队或机场以确保旅行公众安全的典型金属探测器一样标准。国家的经济竞争力也可能提高，因为拟议的解决方案可以缓解甚至避免健康危机的经济后果。拟议的项目旨在证明基质辅助电离可以与离子迁移率光谱(MAI-IMS)相结合用于病原体检测和鉴定。最近的大流行暴发证明了快速、现场和准确的病原体检测设备的必要性。提出的方法是利用现有的IMS技术并对其进行改进，通过构建基质辅助电离库(Helios-1)来检测病原体，该库克服了目前所有离子迁移率光谱仪对生物分子挥发性的限制。一个关键的技术障碍是找到该设备的最佳电离和操作环境。为了克服这一挑战，必须找到与质谱学最相似的条件，这将包括实验测试，以确定适当的环境条件，并对MAI延长室进行工程改造，以使IMS适用于非挥发性生物分子检测。还需要标准化的生物体样本条件和规程。这一挑战是防止抽样过程中出现差异的关键一步。这一挑战将通过测试不同的提取程序来解决，直到它们满足令人满意的性能标准。此外，机器学习算法将用于病原体识别。以上所有将有助于证明拟议的基于MAI-IMS的病原体检测和鉴定平台的可行性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.