This proposal addresses the need for detection of multiple biological threats in a manner that mitigates the current challenges with short analysis times without environmental interferences. This proposal will lead to a near-real-time in-situ reagentless portable sensor that enables detection and identification of multiple biological threats using deep UV laser induced native fluorescence/Raman spectroscopy combined with an air sampling system and a separation/concentration methodology for bacterial and viral pathogens. The ARIEL (Airborne Risk Identification Enabled by Raman and Luminescence) instrument mitigates the challenges of current microbial detection methods being used by enabling a reagentless method, with detection sensitivities down to a single microbial cell/virus, and requires minimal user interaction. During the Phase 1 proposal we will migrate the ARIEL methodology from TRL 2 to TRL 3 in five months. The effort will capitalize on current deep UV instrumentation at Photon Systems to demonstrate and verify ARIELs detection and identification of microbial threats in natural air samples. The deep UV methodology has been previously shown to enable microbial detection and differentiability for bacterial cells, spores, and viruses. This Phase 1 effort will demonstrate this capability in the proposed sampling and analysis implementation using an air sampling concentration/separation system, developed for this effort, and assess any effect of that environmental contaminants may have on identification. These results will demonstrate proof of concept of the method and further refine the implementation and specific parameters of the ARIEL instrument for Phase 2
