Point-of-need molecular biomonitoring of aquatic species - Phase IIa

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Environmental permits to start development projects require an Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). This is in part because of the potential impacts on species-at-risk (SAR) and their habitat. An EIA requires an environmental consultant to assess the presence of SAR that may be harmed at the development site. Because SAR are rare, they are difficult, time consuming and expensive to detect using traditional visual-based methods. They can cause costly delays in the preparation of EIAs and related development projects. Notably, aquatic organisms shed DNA into the water and this environmental (eDNA) signal can be detected using molecular methods that do not require physical observation of the species in question. This ability to perform an assay on a water sample rather than deploying field crews to engage in more time consuming and labour intensive methods of detection represents an attractive technology for the environmental consulting industry and has the added benefit of not inducing stress or mortality on SAR. A major barrier to adoption of this new technology is the high costs and long delays of sending samples to a central lab using expensive equipment operated by highly-trained personnel. In addition, as the eDNA signal degrades quickly, errors may result from specimen degradation which reduces the signal quality. A point-of-need (PON) platform that is accurate, simple to use and inexpensive fills a crucial market need. In the phase I work, we proposed and succeeded in developing a fast, sensitive, specific, low cost and simple-to-use PON platform to fill that gap. It brings the power of molecular diagnostic to environmental biologists, right in the field. We provide simple, lab-free molecular assays that run on a handheld DNA amplification instrument with mobile connectivity. These new molecular assays are easy to use and don't require any complicated sample preparation. The PON platform avoids the high costs and long delays of sending samples to a central lab using expensive equipment operated by highly-trained personnel. The mobile data feature facilitates reporting of results. Our end-to-end tests can be completed on-site under 2 hours.