Company profile: Universal Detection Technology (UDT)

below) describes how the technology works: Aerosolized spores are captured with an aerosol sampler and suspended in a solution. Suspended spores are ruptured with microwaves to release a chemical from inside the spores called dipicolinic acid, which is unique to bacterial spores. This dipicolinic acid instantaneously reacts with the chemical sensor in the solution. The sensor triggers an intense green luminescence when viewed under ultraviolet light. The intensity of the luminescence corresponds to the concentration of bacterial spores in the sample. If an increase in spore concentration is detected, an alarm sounds. A technician would respond to confirm the presence of anthrax spores using traditional sampling and analysis, such as colony counting and polymerase chain reaction, which amplifies DNA to measurable concentrations. The instrument response time in the lab tests was fifteen minutes, which scientists consider fast enough to help prevent widespread contamination.

For readers who are curious why a NASA outfit such as JPL would bother with anthrax detection, here is the answer: JPL initially became involved in monitoring bacterial spores to quantify the concentration of spores in spacecraft assembly facilities. These are the facilities where spacecraft are built and housed before missions. NASA has a planetary protection policy regulating biological contamination control for all spacecraft. Under this policy, JPL researchers must take precautions against accidentally transferring microbes to other planets. It is under the requirement of this policy that JPL researchers perform work in detecting microorganisms.

NASA realizing the commercial potential of the anthrax smoke detector (ASD), and began to look for a commercial partner to bring the product to market. The story is told that the connection between JPL and UDT happened at a meeting on bioterrorism hosted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where Greg Bearman, a scientist at JPL who worked with Ponce on the bacteria-testing devices and is active in JPL’s Technology Transfer Program, happened to be seated next to Jacques Tizabi, president and CEO of UDT. UDT had been in the air-sampling market for more than thirty years, and it already had a name for the products it offered for monitoring ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants. After a short conversation, Bearman and Tizabi concluded that ASD was a perfect fit for the plans UDT had to expand its line of detection devices.

In August 2002, a few months after the anthrax attacks in the United States, UDT partnered with JPL through NASA’s Innovative Partnerships Program; and through the California Institute of Technology, to gain exclusive rights to option the ASD for worldwide use. The agreement gives UDTT the exclusive rights to manufacture, sell, and distribute a commercially designed and priced unmanned, bioterror detection device which utilizes NASA’s technology. The licensed technologies are 1) Imaging bacterial spores using Tb-DPA luminescence assay and APS imaging; 2) unattended monitoring of aerosolized bacterial spores; and 3) lateral flow immunoassay for bacterial spore detection using lanthanide luminescence. The first two technologies are related to the development of the anthrax smoke detector. The device is designed for continuous on-site detection and real-time reporting of anthrax and other bacterial spore contamination. The UDT device detects airborne bacterial spores based on a unique bacterial spore-specific chemical market (DPA) that triggers bright green luminescence when it binds the chemical sensor molecule (terbium ion, Tb3+). The technologies also include the time-gated detection of DPA induced green luminescence, which eliminates false luminescence unrelated to bacterial spores. The lateral flow immunoassay detection technology may be utilized in UDT’s development of a hand-held species-specific bacterial spore detector. This hand-held device would function similarly to a pregnancy-test kit and can be used by individuals without extensive training to test suspicious powders or surfaces for the presence of anthrax bacteria. UDT believes the technology is a thousand-fold more accurate than similar devices currently in the market.

This agreement also allowed UDT to benefit from the expertise of JPL researchers as they developed their bacterial spore-detection technology for integration into UDT’s bioterrorism-detection device. This accelerated significantly the development and deployment of UDT’s bacterial spore monitor, the BSM-2000. The unit operates on simple principles