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Environmental Medicine and Bioenergetics
| Rapid Analysis of Food and Water for Select Chemical and Microbial Contaminants |
Army Science and Technology Objective: IV.ME.1999.01
Problem
Current field drinking water and food testing procedures take a minimum of 24 hours to complete, require a long logistics tail to support, and provide limited information on the myriad chemical and microbial contaminants that can seriously degrade the medical readiness of soldiers.
Medical Research Solution
Identify and evaluate existing technologies for detecting microbial and chemical contaminants in drinking water and food. Integrate existing technologies with novel gene amplification detection techniques to develop a rapid and fieldable assay for E.coli, an indicator of microbial contamination in drinking water. Develop a hand-held device that is capable of detecting a toxic industrial chemical at parts-per-million levels within 30 minutes. Develop an accurate, portable, reagentless spectral analyzer that can identify fecal contamination in drinking water. Develop protocols that compare the new technologies with the current "gold standard" methodologies and complete field-testing of microbial and chemical detection systems.
Products
An easy-to-use field test kit capable of rapidly detecting bacterial and chemical contamination in drinking water and food. The test kit will provide results within 4 hours and require a minimal logistics tail to support.
Last Update: April 2, 2003