LAS CRUCES, N.M. (April 4, 2003) – LaSys Inc., a small business founded to create highly sensitive sensors using a unique composite material, is developing an ultra-sensitive hand-held pathogen detector after receiving technological assistance from a NASA-funded outreach program.
     The hand-held device would detect food- and water-born pathogens and provide real-time results for agencies involved in border inspections or homeland security. The device would use optical composite materials –exclusively licensed to and developed by LaSys – that can dramatically amplify the optical signature of substances such as toxic chemicals or lethal microbes. However, the company needed initial proof that the technology was applicable for the detection of microbial organisms using LaSys’ optical detector format. That is when LaSys turned to the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) for help.
     SATOP provides free engineering assistance to small businesses with technical challenges through the donations of time and expertise from 32 Space Alliance Partners. SATOP assigned this LaSys’ technical challenge to Dr. Geoffrey Smith, a microbiologist and Biology Department associate professor at NMSU.
     Dr. Smith focused his efforts on the identification of discrete elements on the exterior surfaces of various microbial organisms for detection purposes. The results of his studies will be specifically adapted to LaSys’ optical detector technology, which are expected to provided “significant advantages, such as better resolution and consistency, over other pathogen detection systems,” Dr. Smith said.
     According to Hal Smith, LaSys president, the hand-held device would offer several advantages over current detection techniques. “By the time biological samples from border inspections are tested, several days have passed and the item being tested may have already made its way to market,” he said. “The device that we want to develop would give inspectors immediate results, thereby protecting consumers from potentially contaminated products.”
     Smith said that LaSys currently is seeking additional government funding to develop the device. In the meantime, LaSys also has benefited from a second SATOP engineering assistance effort involving the company’s ultra sensitive optical composite materials, which are a critical part of LaSys’ detector development program. Dr. Steve Hornung, a surface chemist with the Honeywell Company located at New Mexico’s White Sands Test Facility, is actively assisting LaSys with several fabrication techniques of the composites. This effort is expected to result in significant improvements in the LaSys fabrication process.
     “The assistance we received from Drs. Smith and Hornung and SATOP has been extremely helpful and allowed us to move forward at a critical juncture,” Smith said. “It has been wonderful for us to have access to technological expertise that is outside our core competency.”