SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of a cost-effective high-performance platform to monitor and characterize phytoplankton and other microorganisms in water. Some of these aquatic microorganisms may be toxic or even fatal resulting in significant public health concerns (such as recent "red tide" events in Florida, USA) and drastic economic consequences (i.e. deadly effects of harmful algal blooms on the aquaculture industry). The current state of the art in monitoring technology includes laborious and expensive manual sample collection and evaluation using a benchtop microscope or optical digital imaging system. In contrast, the proposed platform will be transformative by enabling low-cost, portable and fast monitoring and automated characterization of aquatic microorganisms. Therefore, this platform will revolutionize monitoring of aquatic microorganisms and, being low cost, it will enable a much wider application of the technology to other markets. Some of these future applications include more efficient biofuels research and development (via algae monitoring), marine biology science and education, general monitoring of particles and pathogens at the water treatment facilities, production algae monitoring. Therefore, the potential societal impact and commercial potential of the proposed technology is transformative. The proposed project aims to develop and evaluate a portable, rapid, durable and environmentally-stable imaging flow-cytometry technology that will automatically monitor microorganisms, such as phytoplankton and pathogens present in the flowing water, and will be capable of specific classification. Existing optics-based flow-cytometry solutions are expensive and not durable for field use. Unlike lab-based flow cytometers or hand-held assays, the proposed system will not rely on reagents or labeling, and therefore will not need an expert/professional, and will keep the evaluated water unchanged. Thus, it can be installed for continual unattended operation and will be much more cost-effective per test due to elimination of an expert's time, costly reagents and fluorophores. Furthermore, the proposed system will also be integrated with a machine learning engine capable of automated identification of microorganisms as well as other micro-objects of interest. Finally, the proposed system will be evaluated on pre-collected samples of local coastal ocean water to determine the presence of three example types of phytoplankton microorganisms and to provide statistical distribution of all of the detected micro-objects. Therefore, the proposed system will be transformative and provide an innovative and unique capability to expediently survey samples of water and automatically characterize identified micro objects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a cost-effective, high-performance platform to monitor and characterize plankton and other microorganisms in water. Some of these aquatic microorganisms may be harmful or even fatal resulting in significant public health concerns and economic consequences, such as billions lost annually in the aquaculture industry due to harmful algal blooms and sea lice. The current state of the art in monitoring technology includes laborious and expensive manual sample collections and evaluation. In contrast, the proposed platform may enable low-cost, portable and fast monitoring, as well as automated characterization of harmful aquatic microorganisms. Furthermore, this platform will enable a much wider application of the technology to other markets such as marine biology science and STEM education, general monitoring of particles and pathogens at the water treatment facilities, and production algae monitoring. The proposed technology is envisioned to have a significant societal impact and commercial potential. This project may result in a versatile, cost-effective, and high-throughput aquatic microobjects monitoring instrument. The instrument will have a wide spectrum of applications and initial focus on aquaculture market. The technology will initially focus on early identification of specific microorganisms, such as sea lice and harmful algae as they are detrimental to the wellbeing of aquaculture animals. This demonstration will provide high quality data at an affordable price to ensure confidence and credibility to aquaculture farmers, marine scientists, and other users interested in aquatic microobjects characterization. To accomplish this plan, several operating regimes will be implemented enabling the device to switch from high-resolution (monitoring harmful algae) to high-throughput (identifying sea lice). An autofluorescent camera module will be developed to further assist with differentiating microorganisms. Next, an innovative neural network framework will be developed and tested for identification of different types of sea lice and harmful algae. Finally, the system will be integrated into an environmentally protected enclosure and rigorously tested in laboratory, as well as in-field in realistic conditions. At the end of the Phase II program a prototype will be completed that will be designed in coordination with aquaculture partners and prospective users. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.