Projects Profile
Project Title
Portable Biosensors Based on Lab-on-a-Chip Technology for Environmental Pollution Monitoring
Partnership
Dr. Xunli Zhang from University of Southampton
Prof. Ningyi Zhou from Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Project Aim
This project aims to use Lab-on-a-Chip technology to develop a biosensor to assist in monitoring levels of harmful pollutants released from the manufacture of chemically-related products.
This miniaturized biosensor may be used for on-site hand-held monitoring (or through installed equipment delivering periodic sample data) by both industry and environmental agencies as a potential replacement for current methods -- conventional laboratory based bench-top instruments (such as gas chromotography or mass spectrometers). If successful, our technology will both lower the cost of analysing samples and reduce the time involved in monitoring.
Inspiration for the projects
During the manufacture of a wide range of chemically-related products (such as prescription medications, cosmetics, pesticides and dyes), a variety of aromatic substances are released into the environment which pose a serious risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment. It is important to monitor the level of those compounds in the environment in order to prevent and/or treat the contamination. In order to tackle this problem we propose to develop a new type of portable detection system based on Lab-on-a-Chip bioreactor technology for fast and reliable measurements of aromatic organic compounds in surface water and soil.
Commercial Potential and Further Development
The proposed project integrates both partners’ cross-disciplinary expertise in order to produce a new type of environmental monitor sensing for the ‘enzymatic degradation’ of target compounds within the miniaturized lab-on-a-chip bio-reactors. If successful, this technique should allow a measurable effect to be sensed for individual bio-reactions catalyzed by specific enzymes. We also plan to create multi-compound sensing devices allowing simultaneous detection of a range of pollutants.
