Reagent Selection Methodology for an Explosives Detection Platform

Dr. Marvin Warner, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been researching the individual pieces of antibodies to set up a chemical reaction that will give off light just by mixing reagents together with a sample that contains an explosive molecule.

Transcript

00:00:03 my name is Marvin Warner and I am a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory currently I'm researching the individual pieces of antibodies to set up a chemical reaction that will give off light just by mixing our re agents together with a sample uh that contains an explosive molecule basically the immune system is designed such that when you have a a foreign

00:00:25 Invader or uh something like a virus or a bacteria it is designed to mobilize cells with in a given body that are specifically designed to Target The Invader render them basically inactive or neutralize them this keeps any type of of foreign body or Invader from causing any adverse effects within the organism you can exploit this immune system Behavior to basically then

00:00:47 produce antibodies that are specific for targets of Interest the explosive protein conjugate is injected into the organism the immune system kicks in antibodies are produced against the foreign body in order order to basically clear that foreign body from the organism we isolate the cells that basically encode for those specific proteins that are designed to clear the

00:01:09 foreign body from the organism and we take that genetic information and produce the proteins external of the organism basically development of the detection platform that we have in mind would have a great deal of effect for deployment at at distant Outpost or checkpoint type monitoring where you would have very little to no uh external power you could basically take a sample

00:01:30 off of a surface stick it into a handheld system or some type of container that contains your protein reagents you would then press a button to release the reagents and as the proteins come together in the presence of the explosive you would see a light that would not otherwise be given off in the absence of the explosive I think we're going to find better sensitivity

00:01:51 and just better functionality overall by using a low power detector compared to the conventional method of pulling a laser and a detector system and a computer and everything else into the field you you have a much smaller power footprint you have the understanding of all the nuances and technologies that are necessary to form re agents that have been postulated in the literature

00:02:08 and do so in a somewhat guess nonlinear non-conventional path um can only happen with a team that you could form in a place like pnnl where we have all the different multidisciplinary components