The true power of Zone Fluidics was manifest in the next major project that Global FIA undertook. Years before Steve Brown, an engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, attended a workshop presented by Olson at Pittcon. In the late 90's LLNL initiated a major effort into the development of an autonomous pathogen detector for the environmental monitoring of strategic sites for nefarious release of biological pathogens. The instrumental platform that was being explored by LLNL fast became hugely complex and Brown, remembering the power of FIA, began a search for experts in the field. His old workshop teacher came up in his search and so began a most fascinating collaboration between LLNL and Global FIA. An initial audit of their instrumental platform resulted in a proposed alternative - a Zone Fluidics manifold. The design found favor with the LLNL research team and Global FIA was invited to begin a study to provide the basic building blocks of the fluid-handling engine for what became known as the APDS (Autonomous Pathogen Detection System). The first field test of the APDS was carried out in Global FIA's Fox Island Laboratory.
Autonomous Pathogen Detection System
This test revealed the challenges of in-situ measurement away from the comfort of the home laboratory. Subsequent field tests explored the exposure of the APDS to live pathogens in a regulated environment, deployment and unattended operation in an airport, long term deployment in various urban locations, and testing at a major international sport event. In the course of this development, the need for orthogonal detection techniques to eliminate the risk of false positives became evident. Initial detection relied on flow-through real-time PCR developed by this team. To this was added immunoassay on the surface of micro-particles. For Zone Fluidics, this meant simply adding a few more unit operations. The power of Zone Fluidics was thus established. The innovative ideas incorporated in the APDS were recognized with R&D-100 award in 2004.
R&D100 award