Direct airborne particulate and bioaerosol capture using suspended liquid surfactant membranes for continuous biodetection and threat analysis

传染性空气传播疾病是一种巨大的社会经济负担，其影响涉及植物、动物和人类健康。能够收集和无缝检测病原体存在的技术尚未成熟，这使得气雾剂传播作为一种疾病媒介尤其难以缓解。迄今为止，还没有广泛使用哨点或监测系统来减少通过空气传播的疾病，将疾病预防的负担推到了诊断方法和疾病感染后控制措施上，就像SARS-CoV-2大流行期间所看到的那样。持续监测空气样本和识别新的和新出现的风险的能力有可能在感染前提供早期预警和决策信息，为环境、民用和军事环境中的各种使用案例提供加强保护。这项研究方案的愿景是，通过开发一种液膜系统，直接将空气中的物质捕获到可随时采样用于快速下游分析的液体中，从而实现用于生物检测目的的高浓度、低损失、气溶胶捕获方面的飞跃。解决这一问题将应用于各种室内和室外环境的空气监测。柔性液体表面活性剂膜完全没有进行气溶胶收集和检测的测试。除了从膜上流动的空气中捕获颗粒的复杂性之外，在表面活性剂膜的设置和稳定方面还有几个工程挑战需要克服。这项研究的两个核心工程挑战是，第一，可靠地产生、维持和随后管理液膜(LiMEM)崩溃的能力，该液膜膜具有与下游分析工具(如分子诊断(qPCR、LAMP)或基于免疫分析的检测(LFA)等)生物兼容的成分。这项研究的第二个方面，也可能是更雄心勃勃的方面，是将LiMEM悬浮在气流中，以有效地捕获和保留气溶胶材料。解决这些工程挑战将产生一种能够对抗致病气溶胶传播的工具，从而增强人们对防御环境的信心，识别新的和新出现的环境疾病风险，或阻止医疗保健相关感染(HCAI)在医院和护理环境中的传播。拟议的研究计划分为几个阶段，以应对潜在的工程挑战。在24个月的时间里，我们将开发一个原则验证平台，以验证LiMEM概念作为一个全面综合的平台的潜在组成部分，以收集、分析、识别和量化有害的生物气溶胶。该系统将与已知的生物气溶胶类似物(惰性/空气动力学：聚苯乙烯(PSL)微球、细菌芽胞：阿托罗巴氏杆菌、蛋白质/毒素：卵蛋白)进行基准比较，以便将结果数据与UH集团为英国国防部开发的其他生物检测进展(例如，ESP/电湿润平台)进行可靠的比较。在气溶胶检测专家、环境工程专家以及感染控制和管理专家投入的综合愿景的推动下，这个雄心勃勃的项目旨在提供一种新方法，以提供变革性的实时低成本环境生物气溶胶监测技术。

Infectious airborne diseases are an enormous socioeconomic burden with impacts that span plant, animal and human health. Technology capable of collecting and seamlessly detecting the presence of pathogens have yet to reach maturity rendering aerosol dispersion as a disease vector particularly challenging to mitigate. To date there is no widespread use of sentinel or monitor systems to mitigate airborne disease transmission, pushing the burden of disease prevention onto diagnostic approaches and post disease infection control measures, as witnessed during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The ability to continuously monitor air samples and identify new and emerging risks has the potential to deliver early warning and inform decision making prior to infection, providing enhanced protection for a wide variety of use cases in environmental, civilian and military settings.The vision for this research programme is to take a leap forward in high-concentration, low-loss, aerosol capture for biodetection purposes through the development of a liquid membrane system that directly captures airborne material into a fluid that can be readily sampled for rapid downstream analysis. Resolving this has application towards airborne monitoring across a range of indoor and outdoor settings.Flexible liquid surfactant membranes are wholly untested for aerosol collection and detection. There are several engineering challenges to overcome in the setup and stabilisation of surfactant membranes in addition to the added complexity of particle capture from air moving over the membrane. The two core engineering challenges for this research are, firstly, the ability to reliably generate, sustain and subsequently manage the collapse of a liquid film membrane (LiMEM) that has a composition that is biocompatible with downstream analysis tools such as molecular diagnostic (qPCR, LAMP) or immunoassay-based detection (LFA etc). The second, and perhaps more ambitious aspect of this research is the suspension of the LiMEM within an airflow to efficiently capture and retain aerosol material.Addressing these engineering challenges would yield a tool that can combat the transmission of pathogenic aerosols, leading to increased confidence in defence settings, identification of new and emerging environmental disease risks or halting the spread of Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI) in hospital and care settings. The proposed research plan is divided into phases to address the underlying engineering challenges. Over 24 months we will develop a proof of principle platform to validate the LiMEM concept as a potential component in a fully integrated platform for collection, analysis and identification and quantification of harmful biological aerosols. The system will be benchmarked against known biowarfare aerosol analogs (inert/aerodynamic: Polystyrene (PSL) microspheres, bacterial spore: Bacillus Atrophaeus, protein/toxin: ovalbumin) so that the resultant data can be compared reliably to other recent biodetection advances developed by the UH group for the UK MoD (e.g. ESP/Electrowetting platforms).Driven by the combined vision of aerosol detection specialists, environmental engineering experts and with input from infection control and management experts, this highly ambitious project aims to deliver a new method to providing transformative real-time low cost environmental bioaerosol monitoring technology.