AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Viable Approach for the Detection and Sampling of Mycobacteria Species Contamination by Aerosol and Surface Sampling
Pamela Murowchick, DAVID ALBURTY, Alec Adolphson, Michael Hornback, Benjamin Cobb, Brian Dable, AlburtyLab, Inc.
Abstract Number: 473 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Testing was recently conducted in the AlburtyLab test chamber. The goal of this evaluation was to demonstrate an initial version of the Areté Associates BioSS integrated environmental health monitoring system, including the Areté TRAP biomonitor detector/collector, InnovaPrep LLC backpack surface extractor (BSE) and Epistem Ltd. Genedrive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identifier. The system successfully demonstrated “point of interest” detection, surface sample extraction and biological ID in less than 1 hour. The system, as tested, demonstrated detect/collect/identify (DCI) capability individually and as a system met or exceeded the test objectives.
A modified strain of Escherichia coli bacteria was disseminated in the aerosol test chamber and used for trigger detecting with the biomonitor. The E. coli strain harbors a plasmid that contains a rifampicin resistant rpoB variant cloned from a clinical sample of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which the follow-on confirmatory identification node’s assay is designed to detect.
When the aerosolized bacteria were detected in the test cloud at a suitable concentration to alarm, the biomonitor triggered collection of a dry filter sample. Following the completion of sampling, the dry filter sample was extracted and loaded into an assay for identification. In parallel to the dry filter collection, a portable surface sampler, BioSS Backpack Surface Extractor (BSE), was used to collect the bacteria from test coupons exposed to the same E. coli test cloud. The extracted eluent from the surface collector was directly loaded into an assay for identification. The progress of the hardware systems was monitored in real-time with the status communicated to an off-site database where the results can be aggregated from several pieces of equipment. For this test evaluation, the components of the BioSS were operated in independent steps as a proof-of-concept.