Johne’s Disease is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases in ruminants – causing extensive losses to the US cattle industry (estimated to be ~ $ 1.5 Billion annually). Due to the slow-growing nature of the causative organism, Mycobacterium avium ssp paratuberculosis, it currently takes 10-45 days to detect the presence of the causative bacterium in test samples. Sengupta and William Fales, Ph.D., propose to develop a microfluidic platform and an electrical impedance based measurement technique to provide the same information in one-fourth the time (or even quicker). The technique relies on the effects of microfluidic geometry and the ability of individual live bacteria to store electric charge to pick up signatures of bacterial proliferation (or lack thereof) in liquid media. The microfluidic platform also potentially enables a large number of experiments in parallel in cheap disposable cassettes, thereby cutting diagnostic costs as well. Collaborator: William Fales, Ph.D., (Veterinary Pathobiology)
Essentially, the same core technology used for the previous (Johne’s Disease) project, can, with modifications, be utilized to rapidly estimate the antibiotic susceptibility profile of various pathogens. Preliminary experiments indicate that they can establish the antibiotic susceptibility profiles of fast growing bacteria (such as E coli) in less than 7 hours (as opposed to 2-5 days using currently used technologies).
"Real world" samples, whether clinical, food or environmental typically contain target pathogens at either concentrations too low to be detected, or mixed with many other species. Sengupta, Shubhra Gangopadhyay, Ph.D. and Luis Polo-Parada, Ph.D., are looking at how to use nano-particles (conjugated to antibodies) to enhance both the separability and the detectablity of target species/strains. At this point, they are looking to develop a generic platform that can, in the future, be tailored to specific applications in the enfironmental, food science, medical diagnostics, and bio-defense areas. Collaborators: Shubhra Gangopadhyay, Ph.D., (LaPierre Chair and Joint Professor, Departments of Electrical Engineering, Biological Engineering and Physics) and Luis Polo-Parada, Ph.D., (Medical Pharmacology and Physiology)
