Pesticides are among the most ubiquitous and persistent contaminants, and human epidemiological studies have found associations between pesticide exposure and a number of adverse health conditions

We will develop a nanobody-based biosensor strain along with a on-line biosensor platform that uses a microfluidic device to detect and quantify the pesticide chlorpyrifos in real time.objective 1: to identify and characterize the binding kinetics of nanobodies for chlorpyrifos. We will identify nanobodies that bind chlorpyrifos molecules and characterize their capture potential when surface displayed in an e. Coli strain. We will work with a set of nanobodies that are enriched for specificity to the target, and we will clone them into our e. Coli nanobody display vector, and screen and characterize them within our multiplexed microfluidic platform.objective 2: to develop a prototype for continuous and batch chlorpyrifos sensing. We will develop an assay for measuring agglutination on a microfluidic-scale from many individual strain banks. We will optimize an agglutination assay using the surface-displayed nanobody strains, and then transduce the agglutination signal using a customized computational algorithm. Finally, we will optimize a sensor device to facilitate this assay and maximize the cellular signal so that we can quantify the amount of contaminant present in the water.importantly, this project serves as a seed project, as once we have demonstrated proof of principle with the development of a sensor for chlorpyrifos detection, we will have a pipeline to rapidly develop sensors for many other emerging contaminants of concern.?