This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II project will complete the development of a rapid biosensor for the detection of fecal contamination in recreational water (both fresh and marine). Under current EPA guidelines, marine water should be tested for the presence of enterococci while fresh water can be tested for either enterococci or E. coli, but all testing is hampered by a 1-2 day delay before results are available. The current project will permit this testing to be completed in approximately 3 hours, thereby dramatically improving the safety of U.S. recreational waters. It will also provide the US EPA with a means to satisfy a court-ordered requirement to reduce the time of current recreational water testing to ?same day? results. The broader impacts of this research are that the CARD? technology can also be used to test water parks and swimming pools for other pathogenic microorganisms. Moreover, the CARD? technology can be used in other markets such as drinking water safety, food/beverage testing, therapeutics manufacturing, personal care product testing, and human/veterinary diagnostics. In addition, since the fully automated, portable system does not require operator input, individuals of varying skill levels will be able to easily perform sophisticated molecular assays that would otherwise have required extensive training and equipment. Therefore, in applications that require rapid turnaround of results, such as production floor analysis of in-process or finished products requiring bio-burden analysis, the CARD? technology will provide an economical and easy solution to improving manufacturing efficiencies.
