Prototyping and Deploying Air and Surface Virus Monitoring Point-of-Need Technologies to Improve Remediation Responses and Minimize Economic Losses of Viral Outbreaks

该项目扩展了约克大学与Sixth Wave Inc. （SIXW）的合作关系。它带来了新的合作伙伴，如Poppy Inc.、BluMetric Env。加拿大食品检验局（CFIA）和加拿大卫生部（HC）利用他们在开发和验证环境生物传感器方面的专业知识。目标：1)开发两种低成本生物传感器，用于空气和表面的敏感病毒监测；2)将生物传感器部署到最终用户实验室；3)评估合作伙伴的技术采用和经济效益。项目目标是与SIXW和Poppy合作，通过开展以下活动，制作用于空气和表面病毒检测的便携式荧光测量仪（目标1）和电动（目标2）生物传感器的原型（目标1）：1)将生物传感器与便携式空气采样器、泵、电动和显微镜模块包装在一起；2)便携式生物传感器的参数化研究与优化；3)在实验室中确定其性能特征。目标3是在现场实际样品中部署用于病毒检测的生物传感器（目标2）。活动包括：1)将这两种生物传感器转移到HC， CFIA， BME等，并对其进行优化，使其能够与真实的空气和表面病毒样本一起工作；2)培训合作伙伴人员使用生物传感器并共同进行验证研究。目标4是通过开展以下活动，了解采用生物传感器的障碍，以最大化生物传感器的经济和社会效益（目标3）：1)确定和量化生物传感器的短期和长期经济和社会净效益；2)识别和评估采用的障碍。该项目使共同开发人员能够在了解用户使用障碍后将两种生物传感器推向市场，并帮助共同验证者实现快速环境监测，以便在病毒传播期间采取有效的补救行动和决策。通过培养生物技术领域的6名本科生、2名理学硕士、2名博士生和2名博士后，将开发有关分子印迹聚合物及其与病毒亲和力的新知识。他们将传播专利和科学文章，同时申请未来的资助，并获得/创造就业机会，使其技术商业化。

This project expands on a partnership between York U and Sixth Wave Inc. (SIXW). It brings in new partners like Poppy Inc., BluMetric Env. Inc. (BME), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada (HC) to leverage their expertise in development and validation of environmental biosensors. Goals: 1) develop two low-cost biosensors for sensitive virus monitoring in air and on surfaces; 2) deploy the biosensors to end-user labs; and 3) assess technology adoption and economical benefits by partners. Project objectives are to partner with SIXW and Poppy to prototype a portable fluorometric (Obj. 1) and an electric (Obj. 2) biosensor for air and surface virus detection (Goal 1) by pursuing these Activities: 1) Package the biosensors with portable air sampler, pump, electric and microscopy modules; 2) Parametrically study and optimize the portable biosensors; 3) Determine their performance characteristics in-lab. Obj. 3 is to deploy the biosensors for virus detection in real samples, on-site (Goal 2). Activities include: 1) Transfer the two biosensors to HC, CFIA, BME, etc. and optimize them to work with real air- and surface-virus samples; 2) Train partner personnel to use the biosensors and co-perform validation studies. Obj. 4 is to understand barriers to adoption to maximize economic and societal benefits of the biosensors (Goal 3) by pursuing the following Activities: 1) Identify and quantify short- and long-term economic and societal net benefits of biosensors; 2) Identify and assess barriers to adoption.The project enables co-developers to bring two biosensors to the market after understanding user barriers to adoption, and help co-validators achieve rapid environmental monitoring to make effective remediation actions and decisions during virus spreads. New knowledge about molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and their affinity to viruses will be developed by training 6 undergraduate, 2 Master of Science, and 2 doctoral students as well as 2 postdoctoral fellows, in the biotechnology sector. They will disseminate patents and scientific articles while applying for future grants and acquiring/creating jobs to commercialize their technologies.