Sporian wins Army contract to develop optical nanotech-based biological/chemical sensor

The US Army has awarded a contract to Sporian Microsystems (Lafayette, CO) to develop a small, modular, field-deployable chemical/biological sensor for use in remote monitoring applications. The new sensor will be based on a combination of novel optoelectronics, optical spectroscopy, and nanotechnology.

"The system should be easily adapted to sense a wide variety of chemical or biological targets, but the first targets for the Army are airborne biological threat agents such as Bacillus Anthracis (anthrax)," said Sporian principal investigator Dr. KaTrina Daniels. "We expect to develop a reusable system, designed to be highly modular to promote integration with a range of existing, and future, data collection and wireless sensor network systems,"

The US Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Alexandria, VA will monitor the results of Sporian's development efforts. Sporian is also working with OEMs to determine functional requirements for the sensor.

Beyond application to U.S. Department of Defense initiatives, Sporian says the sensor has opportunities for environmental monitoring, water quality, health care, and security applications.

The effort, according to Sporian, leverages the company's expertise in areas including analytical chemistry, molecular biology, optics, low power design, wireless communications and electro-mechanical packaging. Sporian is known for developing, marketing, manufacturing and selling portable, low-cost wired and wireless sensors, sensor-suites, sensor-subsystems, and sensor data-loggers with high commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) content for a variety of applications--including other biological and chemical sensors for environmental contaminant and serum pathogen detection.

For more information about Sporian visit the company's website or call 303-516-9075 X 19.