Spectrophotometry is a staple of almost any biology and chemistry lab. The idea for our device, and it’s an old one, is that light can be shone through a biological or chemical sample and the amount of light absorbed provides a signature that can be used to determine the concentration of matter in the sample. This principle can be used to detect the amount of protein, DNA or even bacteria present which is useful if we want to study a gene, or a bacterium and how it responds to antibiotics.
The purpose of our project was to make a 3-wavelength fluorescence spectrophotometer that incubates the sample and provides data, typically in the form of gene expression patterns.
Our design principles make our device reliable and extremely low maintenance, it is low in power use with a small, mobile footprint. It can even reduce downtime and lost data in the event of sudden power loss in the lab; where most commercial devices lose their data, our device stores it, eliminating some of the risks inherent to lab work.
However, the device's biggest feature is the flexibility you get from a low-footprint device. Unlike most lab spectrophotometers, you can put it in a bag and carry it on a bike, you could even run it off solar power in a field. 12 of our devices could fit into the space of a typical commercial plate reader.
Importantly, data quality does not suffer because of its size. Algorithms are used to de-noise data, the device performs repeat readings as technical replicates and this ensures data quality is equivalent to, if not better than, currently available commercial devices.
While we are still working towards achieving a stable spinout a good deal of significant progress has been made on all core planned aspects of the project 1. the light engine and a patent, 2. digital / software technology and algorithms, 3. device production costs., 4. lightweight / small footprint final construction.
