SBIR-STTR Award

The widespread occurrence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the environment requires a comprehensive assessment of their environmental impact. This assessment is made substantially more difficult because the PCBs are a mixture of 209 possible chloro-isomers, the most common mixtures may not represent the most significant toxic or biologically active components. Consequently, there is growing recognition that the congener specific analysis of PCBs in the environment is required for the evaluation of the PCBs environmental impact. However, the effort and expense associated with the analysis of these compounds by capillary gas chromatography place substantial restraints on the required studies. Immunoassay based analytical methods have demonstrated the ability to provide both high throughput screening and quantitative analyses. This method provides for a marked reduction in both sample preparation due to high specificity and instrumentation requirements due to assay simplicity. This project will build on ECOCHEM's successful development of a sensitive and quantitative Aroclor directed PCB immunoassay to develop a toxic/ biologically active congener relevant assay for both sample screening and congener specific analysis.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research: This assay technology will be applicable both as a research tool for specific PCB congener studies and in a commercial format for the screening of samples for the toxic/biologically active PCB congeners.National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are ubiquitous environmental pollutants with diverse toxic, teratogenic, reproductive, immunotoxic and tumorigenic effects. Three of the least abundant chlorinated PCB isomers (congeners) are the most toxic and most difficult to quantify. Novel competitors, a novel hapten and a monoclonal antibody (MAb) were prepared in Phase I and utilized to create a sensitive and specific immunoassay for two of the three most toxic PCB congeners. This Phase II project expands on the Phase I goals to produce new chemical competitors and MAbs which will recognize the remaining highly toxic congener and two groups of slightly less toxic but much more abundant congeners. Chemometric methods will be used with the immunoassays to identify the major classes of PCB congeners in environmental and biological samples. MAb immunoaffinity reagents will be prepared for selective recovery and chromatography of toxic congeners from crude samples, and for development of advanced field-portable and automated instrumental immunoassay formats. This project combines the research and development expertise of ECOCHEM, the University of California, Berkeley Hybridoma Facility and the product manufacturing, field evaluation and validation experience of the EnviroGard project team at Millipore Corp. This effort will yield the first commercial assays and reagents for congener-specific PCB identification and quantitation in environmental and biological samples. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Commercial applications include products for regulatory hazard assessment, occupational exposure monitoring, bioremediation, environmental toxicology research, environmental remediation, fish and wildlife protection and food safety monitoring