Metnors
Dr Frank Miskevich, Biology Dept., Dr Matthew Elam, Industrial Engineering Dept. TAMU-Commerce
If humans are to live and function well in space, the biology of the space habitat must be fully understood and monitored
to protect the astronauts. Monitoring and remediating contamination is a critical function astronauts must perform on a routine basis.
Unfortunately, current monitoring methods require resupply every 90 days and detect approximately 5% of the contaminants. An improved
monitoring system will be critical for human exploration outside the immediate vicinity of Earth. In the previous academic year, the
students worked with faculty to design and build a prototype device to address several of these concerns. The prototype uses a 210 mW
UV-LED illuminator to excite a non-toxic DNA binding dye (Hoechst 33258) so that it glows blue. An infinitube portable microscope
fitted with a 10x Olympus microscope objective captures the fluorescence of the bacterial sample and a Nikon D80 camera captures a
digital image of the stained bacteria. Samples are placed in the machine by capturing bacteria on a non-fluorescent, 0.2 micron pore
25mm black polycarbonate filter. The samples may come from filtered water, air, or swipe samples. Future work on this team project
will further optimize the prototype; improve design to avoid the slippage of the cassette from the adaptor
(due to multiple use or vibrations), improve stepper motor and control program that will allow the team to capture a statistically
relevant number of images for an accurate estimation of bacterial count (avoiding overlap and over counting of particular areas of the
filter). Finally, the team will focus on automating the overall process that involves activating the stepper motor/LED illuminator,
collecting a series of images and processing imagery data to produce a count of microorganisms present in each sample. It is believed
that such a system would be of great importance to NASA.
2009 Spring Presentaion
2008 Fall Presentation
Website
Vist the TAMU-Commerce Teams website at
http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/fmiskevich/Research/bacterial_detection.html
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