In this project, funded by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program of the Chemistry Division, the multidisciplinary team of Dr. Sylvia Daunert and Dr. Sapna Deo at the Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami will design and prepare sensors and bioremediation systems that take advantage of the natural hardiness and ruggedness of bacterial spores to develop platforms in which biosensing-biotransformation protein reagents are displayed on the spore surface. These surface-displayed proteins are employed for sensing, biotransformation, and immobilization purposes and employed to develop paper-based detection platforms. This strategy provides with portable, easy-to-use, rapid, cost-effective, and stable biosensing and biotransformation systems with a wide range of potential applications in the environmental field. The broader impacts are addressed not only through the scientific impact of the work but also through educational and outreach activities. Students are trained to be effective communicators by classical methods and by learning to make short films and videos featuring their own research. Academic and industrial collaborations expose the students to global science. Further, a new generation of physician scientists are trained in critical analytical thinking, problem solving and in research through a 'Molecular Medicine' Pathway whereby medical students perform laboratory work and participate in research group activities. The goal is that medical graduates gain the necessary skills to become successful researchers in academic medicine or clinicians who can tackle medical problems from their root at the molecular level.
This project advances the field of bioanalytical chemistry by creating powerful biosensing tools that are stable in various extreme environmental conditions for prolonged periods of time and can be integrated into easy-to-use analytical devices with a rapid response. Natural ruggedness and successful genetic manipulation allows for spores to provide more stable biosensing systems with a wide range of applications in environmental and biomedical sciences by facilitating the transport and expanding on-site use, service lives, and storage of biosensors. The project is interdisciplinary in nature with elements of bioanalytical chemistry, molecular biology, sensor development and miniaturization, and biomedical/environmental science.
