Overview
Topic status: We're looking for students to study this topic.
Rapid microbial detection and identification with a high grade of sensitivity and selectivity is a great and challenging issue in many fields. Taking in to account ongoing security concerns, there is a vital need to develop fast and sensitive screening technique for homeland security applications, forensic investigations as well as environmental monitoring of water quality. The most popular system of biochemical tests for bacterial identification is called APIs; this is used in routine laboratory analysis. With APIs, a series of biochemical tests are applied to an organism cultured in the laboratory; the responses of the organism to these tests are then matched against a database of possible results to provide identification. Conventional microbial typing is inherently slow because of the need to grow the microorganism, and for slow growing organisms like Mycobacterium tuberculosis this can take 3-6 weeks.The Vibrational spectroscopic technique 'Raman spectroscopy' is a non-invasive method yielding molecular fingerprint information; thus, allowing for a fast and reliable analysis of complex biological systems such as bacterial (Gram-positive, Gram-negative) or yeast cells. Surface enhancement Raman spectroscopy 'SERS' can enhance the intensity of the intrinsically weak Raman signals by several orders of magnitudes, thereby opening the possibility to investigate samples containing bio-molecules at low concentrations. SERS has the significant advantages of minimal sample preparation and ease of operation. SERS, together with appropriate multivariate statistical techniques (chemometrics), can be used as a discrimination tool for closely related bacterial species. With little spectra pre-processing, cluster analyses can produce robust and accurate models of the bacteria strand present within the sample.
This project aims at developing a portable surface enhanced Raman sensor for real time detection of microorganisms within water samples. The proposed approach is to use 'SERS' technique enforced with multivariate statistical data treatment to generate and extract highly specific fingerprints of harmful microorganisms that may present or introduced to water supplies.
- Study level
- PhD
- Supervisors
- QUT
- Organisational unit
Science and Engineering Faculty
- Research area
- Contact
- Please contact the supervisor.
Dr Emad Kiriakous
