Multiplexed Sensors for Biomonitoring of Wood Smoke Exposure among Wildland Firefighters

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Project Summary/Abstract This research project directly addresses objective one of the NORA for the Public Safety Sector which calls for research to “Identify exposures experienced by fire service and wildland firefighters” and to “develop improved and cost-efficient technologies for the detection of contaminants that may be present during firefighting” in order to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases amongst firefighters, including wildland firefighters. The project also addresses priorities to reduce work-related illness by better describing and characterizing exposures to hazardous chemicals, including those from wildfires in the Agriculture (Objective AG-02) and Forestry (Objective FO-02) Sectors, and the project addresses Cross- Sector priorities to “Develop new field equipment/strategies for the assessment of occupational exposures for the study of respiratory health” and to “develop and evaluate industrial hygiene sampling and analytical methods (including biomonitoring and other methods) for the determination of carcinogen exposures” (Objective 2; CRC Cross-Sector). The objective of this project is to develop a low cost and highly sensitive multiplex biosensor system integrated with a smartphone readout that can rapidly and accurately analyze a panel of woodsmoke-derived biomarkers amongst wildland firefighters at anticipated low concentrations. Of particular importance to this approach is the ability to couple a simple sample separation strategy with a parallel sensor platform and smartphone readout for simultaneous quantification of multiple targets, and to increase sensitivity using single-atom nanozymes (SANs) amplification. This is significant to identify multiple analytes at low concentrations in biological matrices, such as those will be developed in this project. Further integration with a smartphone reader, the proposed biosensor will provide quantitative results, and allow real-time data collection and sharing. In this project, we will collect blood and urine samples from field firefighters to investigate the woodsmoke-associated biomarkers and evaluate the proposed biosensor system. Short-term outcomes of this research will include publication and presentation of research results; whereas, intermediate outcomes will focus on the development/validation of a sensor platform using samples collected from field firefighters with an eventual end outcome (beyond scope of current project) of using the sensor system for measuring and subsequently reducing firefighters’ exposure to wood smoke. The development, validation and subsequent deployment of a multiplex sensor platform as a quantitative tool to measure mixed firefighters’ occupational exposures is fully consistent with the goals of the NIOSH Research to Practice (r2P) initiative. This approach will provide better analytical performance (e.g., sensitivity, dynamic range, detection limit, reliability, accuracy, and speed) as well as operational performance (user-friendly design) than the current laboratory-based method.