Programme de recherche et d’innovation menant à la détection rapide de bactéries et de drogues (Program On Research and Innovation Leading to Rapid Detection of Bacteria and Drugs)

The research and technology development program that will be enabled by the Industrial Research Chair (IRC) should result in several technology platforms for photonic sensing based on the “laboratory-on-a-fiber” concept. Dr. Bock’s group was one of the first in the world to formulate this approach. The practical objectives will center around studying and testing a variety of novel fiber-optic device solutions and sensing techniques in order to acquire better performing photonic sensing components, devices and systems for applications in sectors ofl importance to Québec and Canada. In the lab-on-a-fiber (LOF) approach all sensing, transmission and decoding functionalities will be based on the optical fiber itself, but implemented in a much simpler way than with the lab-on-a-chip concept. The research will include studying, modeling and developing novel guiding and sensing materials and devices, as well as device and system modeling, technology and engineering. Two new types of biochemical sensing systems are therefore proposed here and they are presented as two parallel themes.
First, several types of bacteria detection will be developped for water environment (such as the toxic blue algae Microcystis aeruginosa) and in food (Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes…). While these new sensors are not more sensitive then microbiological or PCR techniques, they provide faster results and opportunities for continuous monitoring, which could change water quality surveillance in the long run. To achieve this efficient detection, a unique combination of optical fibers with bacteriophages will be used. Bacteriophages are small viruses that are promising recognition elements for use in bacterial biosensors. Thanks to our original approach, once our sensing system is developed and operational, it will be easy to fine tune it to several types of bacteria. In parallel, other bacteria-sensing molecules can be used, such as aptamers. Aptamers are nucleic acids « selected and evolved » in vitro for their binding and specificity against specific ligands, which in this case would be bacteria.
Aptamers can also be selected against numerous types of molecules, including illegal drugs (i.e. cocaine, cannabis or heroin). Therefore, the second type of sensor will be dedicated to remote detection of drugs. In this case, the detection occurs when the ligand triggers the capacity of its corresponding aptamer to bind a nanoparticle chemically conjugated to DNA oligonucleotides, providing a detectable signal for the fiber-optic sensors. For each new target molecule, an aptamer can be selected and used for detection by using the same principles, thus making this a very versatile platform. Furthermore, for molecules that are not amenable to aptamer selection with traditional methods, we will use a new technique of selection, SR-PAGE.
Our team fullfills perfectly the requirements of this project with expertises in physics, chemistry, biochemistry and microbiology.