After a successful Summer Research Team experience with CBTS in 2021, Dr. Michael Pravica, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, received DHS ORISE follow-on funding to continue the biothreat detection work. In his follow-on work, he applied Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to detect biological threats while recognizing the importance of ensuring the rapid and safe movement of goods crossing our borders. His team also developed a portable and inexpensive fluorescence detection system that can detect biological threats from a distance.
Detecting biological threats represents a huge challenge because threats vary widely in size and density (bacterial, viral, toxin etc.) with each threat possibly requiring unique technology to detect it. Dr. Pravica also recognized that the vessels carrying the threat (live and inanimate) will likely require differing detection methods. With that in mind, he sought to determine which methods could be used to initially categorize and possibly identify as wide a class of threats as possible and then progress to more specific techniques to determine the actual threat more accurately. For example, living systems tend to have very broad fluorescence signatures and Raman signals due to strong inter-molecular coupling/hydrogen bonding which are easily discernible from inanimate threats.
Creation of a Spectrometer
This led them to design, construct, and demonstrate a hybrid Raman and UV/Visible absorption spectrometer capable of use in the field. Using fiber optic cables and other optical beam expansion techniques, they experimented with ways to increase the detection distance to at least half a meter away. As a result, Dr. Pravica has achieved important scientific advances while also providing a half dozen undergraduate and graduate students with new technical skills, hands-on training, and a greater appreciation for the value of further work in biothreat detection.