York Universiy
Prototyping and Deploying Air and Surface Virus Monitoring Point-of-Need Technologies to Improve Remediation Responses and Minimize Economic Losses of Viral Outbreaks — This project aims to develop a novel space-deployable microfluidic sensor technology for early stage multiplex detection of chemical and biological disease markers in saliva, as a non-invasive test that can be expanded to many markers in the future. The proposed project is designed in response to health monitoring challenges in space and will be beneficial in detection of salivary biomarkers including Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria (a human-specific bacteria manifesting mild to life-threatening invasive infections) and lactate (an indicator of several diseases such as heart failure, respiratory insufficiency, and immune system dysregulation), leading to early and effective remediation actions.  Training and enabling of professional personnel will lead to economic, health, and societal impacts in Canada.