Molecular engineering of sensors for biological materials

Molecular engineering methods have been used to develop sensors for the capture of DNA, viruses, and bacterial cells, spores, and toxins. The capture technology exploits the molecular basis of pathogenesis and capture events are detected using the intrinsic fluorescence of the captured microbial components. Capabilities include statistically sampling the environment in minutes and sensitivity of /spl sim/100 cells/cm/sup 3/.