The risk of catching
fatal Legionnaires’
disease from air
conditioning units
has been dramatically
reduced, thanks to
a new biophotonic
light sensor that spots
Legionella bacteria
240 times quicker than
methods used today.
Legionella bacteria are normally prevented by heating
water units above 70°C in order to kill them off. However
new bacteria can form quickly, and not all of the pathogens
are necessarily removed. The POSEIDON project aims to
remove the uncertainty involved. Scientific coordinator,
Roberto Pierobon explains:
“POSEIDON is a first for detecting Legionella with light
and provides an inexpensive, user-friendly, state of the art
early warning system on an air-conditioning unit. We aim
to reduce the time involved in a diagnosis from 10 days to
less than 1 hour. In order to prevent outbreaks at critical
times of the year, we should be talking about a matter of
minutes, rather than days.
“Cells remain intact throughout the whole fluid
transportation system in the device, and do not adhere to
the fluidic piping and microfluidic channels. Virtually all of
the bacteria cells in the sample are delivered to the sensing
unit, giving extremely high sensitivity and specificity.”
Hoping to have these revolutionary new pathogen
detectors ready within 3 years, Bruno Bellò, project
coordinator and CEO of Clivet, is excited about the
implications for the future.
“The exciting feature of this device is that with future
development, it could be recalibrated to look for other
pathogens, which would provide incredible safety options
for the environmental, medical or food industries,” Bellò
said.
Earlier last year the POSEIDON consortium received
funding of €4,068,781 from the Photonics Public Private
Partnership, via the European Commission’s H2020
program for a three year research project. Coordinated
in Italy, POSEIDON is comprised of a number of European
partners, including Protolab, Clivet, A.R.C (Italy), Catlab
(Spain), Metrohm Applikon (Netherlands), and Uppsala
University (Sweden).
See more at: www.hseinternational.co.uk/new-light-sensor-spot-deadlybacteria-minutes/
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