Project Grant R41ES028643

This Project Grant award, provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the P3 Award: National Student Design Competition for Sustainability (CFDA 66.516) program, aims to develop an affordable and easy-to-use sensor for highly selective and sensitive detection of lead in tap water. The total funding amount is $100,000, with an award date of September 1, 2024 and an ultimate completion date of April 23, 2025. The key objectives of this project are to: 1) optimize the selectivity...

This Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) provides $305,000.00 in funding to Wave Lumina Inc. to develop a portable device for rapid, on-site detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water. The innovation aims to address the urgent need for affordable, real-time PFAS monitoring, particularly near military bases, airports, and industrial facilities. The project will develop a...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) provides $425,118 to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) to develop a new portable biosensor capable of detecting known and emerging environmental toxins and threats, including biowarfare agents, nanotechnology pollutants, and novel toxins. The key products to be delivered are: A biosensor that uses living microbial...

This $295,923 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) under the Environmental Health (CFDA 93.113) program aims to optimize and validate a low-cost, minimally-invasive dried blood spot (DBS) collection device for accurately quantifying low blood lead levels (BLLs) in a single drop of capillary blood. The device will incorporate innovative and patented technologies to remove lead contamination from the filter paper, protect the paper from...

This $650,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) supports the development of engineered microbial sensors for assessing water quality. The primary objective is to create new low-cost sensing systems that can detect chemicals in water throughout the water cycle, including wastewater treatment, drinking water, industrial use, and stormwater discharges. The project employs a convergence research...

This $200,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems aims to develop a novel water quality monitoring system based on plasmonic sensing with metal-insulator-metal (MIM) nanosensors embedded in soft hydrogel matrices. The key research activities include: 1) modeling and designing the Au-SiO2-Au MIM nanosensors using finite element analysis, 2) synthesizing and testing these nanosensors to optimize plasmonic...

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awarded Xcellassay, Inc. a $306,872 Project Grant under the Environmental Health (CFDA 93.113) federal grant program. The grant funding will support the development and characterization of a hand-held, bioassay-based test strip for rapid, in-field detection of water contamination by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The goal is to create a 1 x 1.5 cm detection strip printed with 20 nuclear receptor sensors that can be...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Congressionally Mandated Projects program (CFDA 66.202) provides $500,000 to Northwestern University to develop and deploy at-home biosensor lead testing technology that can be used by non-experts to gain knowledge about their water quality. The key objectives are to assess and optimize the accuracy, interpretability, and usability of the at-home lead in water tests, as well as understand how...

This $933,796 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), funds the development of paper-based biosensor test strips to detect soil contaminants such as arsenic and PFAS. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will engage citizen scientists and use bacteria as sensors to produce quantitative readings of contaminant concentrations in soil. Two types of bacteria - E. coli functioning as the...

This $287,941 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to develop a novel biochemical sensor technology that can quantify small plastic particles in human blood serum samples. The research project will leverage quantum-coherent light-matter interactions on engineered photonic metasurfaces to advance the analytical performance of mid-infrared absorption spectroscopy. Key objectives include: 1) developing new sensor chips, 2)...