Abstract:
A biosensor unit that can be wall mounted in a location to perform testing of ambient air for bio-contaminants. This could contain an air filter for collecting contaminants and a micro-laboratory on a chip or otherwise situated within the unit to perform DNA or RNA binding tests for specific biological targets. Information from such units distributed within an environment could be communicated to one or more central locations via the internet or other communication means to be logged or recorded or to produce reports or alarms.

Description:
[0001]    This application is a divisional application of co-pending application Ser. No. 11/098,169 filed Apr. 4, 2005 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,387,877 which is related to and claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application No. 60/559,801 filed Apr. 6, 2004. Application Ser. Nos. 11/098,169 and 60/559,801 are hereby incorporated by reference. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0003]    The present invention relates generally to the field of interior air quality and more particularly to a biosensor reporting system that can track airborne bin-contaminants. 
         [0004]    2. Description of the Prior Art 
         [0005]    Remote reporting of environmental data in buildings can be accomplished by placing sensors in various locations and then reporting the data back through wires or by wireless to a gathering station. Alternatively sensor units can store data and report back via telephone lines over the internet to a central facility that usually produces a report. Systems also exist that pipe air to a central location for testing. 
         [0006]    Current building environmental systems generally collect data including temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and many times toxics such as carbon monoxide. Some units collect data on particulate content, mold and radon. 
         [0007]    Recently various companies have reported “labs on a chip” where entire chemical and DNA matching operations can be performed on a single chip. An example of this technology is the recent announce by the company Infineon of a one half centimeter chip that contains micro-channels that can perform DNA trapping of target DNA in liquid phase of over 400 different DNA target types. 
         [0008]    What is badly needed is a reporting system that can collect and report data on airborne pathogens as well as mold, fungi and other airborne biological contaminates. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0009]    The present invention relates to a biosensor unit that can detect specific bio-contaminants in ambient air using DNA, RNA or other tests accomplished by a self-contained micro-laboratory. While DNA and RNA testing is the preferred method of testing, any biological target testing is within the scope of the present invention. 
         [0010]    The present invention can contain a collection filter collecting bin-contaminants from ambient air along with a preparation area wherein collected biological air contaminants are prepared for target identification such as by DNA cleaving or any other preparation method, a target identification area wherein the biological air contaminants are matched with biological target models such as DNA or RNA probes, and a detector counting matches of the air contaminates with the biological target models. Usually a counter forms a quantitative measure or figure of concentration of a particular target molecule or substance. 
         [0011]    The present invention also relates to using such biological micro-sensors in a network such as the internet to remotely monitor a space for biological contaminants and report it to a location where logging, tabulation or reporting of the data can be made. The system of the present invention can also contain distributed or co-located temperature, humidity and/or gas sensors. Gas sensors can detect carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and any other toxic or target gas. 
     
    
     
       DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
         [0012]      FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.— 
           [0013]      FIG. 2  shows layout of a possible laboratory-on-a-chip. 
           [0014]      FIG. 3  is a flow chart of a typical air testing process. 
           [0015]      FIG. 4  shows the layout of a building air monitoring system. 
       
    
    
       [0016]    Various drawings and illustrations have been presented to better aid in the understanding of the present invention. The scope of the present invention is not limited to what is shown in the figures. 
       DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0017]    The present invention relates to a biological sensor and an associated data reporting system that tracks data on airborne pathogens and like bin-contaminants in buildings and other spaces such as aircraft, vessels, vehicles and others. The invention relates generally to an airborne biosensor; and a data collection and reporting system. 
         [0018]      FIG. 1  shows a diagram of an embodiment of an air-borne biosensor that can detect DNA of target pathogens. The entire sensor can be mounted or exist on a silicon or other type of chip or can be made in separate units. An optional air pump (seen in the upper left of  FIG. 1 ) can take ambient air and pump or otherwise force it to move into a filter chamber. By pump, I mean any way of moving air through a filter. In the filter chamber, a micro-filter traps airborne contaminants. This filter can be wet or dry; however, to trap very small targets such as viruses, it is desirable that this filter be wet. In either a wet or dry filter, the trapped contaminants are periodically removed using a micro liquid flush. This flush of a pickup reagent can be performed periodically to provide a liquid phase for subsequent reactions. As stated, air can be forced through this trapping filter by means of an external miniature pump or can be allowed to simply pass through by, for example, placing the filter exposure in an HVAC duct. Bio-matter present in the ambient air is generally trapped in the filter. 
         [0019]    The second section of the present invention can be a chemical process where raw bin-material is chemically prepared so that half-DNA (or RNA) chains of various genes are exposed. The process of preparing biological samples into split DNA chains is well known. After the half-DNA chains are prepared, they can be labeled with a fluorescent, radioactive or other marking method. This can be seen in the center of  FIG. 1  where various reagents are used in a sample preparation chamber to separate and cleave DNA or RNA (or other target material). 
         [0020]    The third part of the present invention is normally a laboratory-on-a-chip  11  which contains micro-channels where thousands of target type DNA half-chains can be attached to the walls of the channels using known techniques. These DNA half-chains will bind with only specific target species. The number of target DNA types that can be tested for is constrained only by the number of channels since different channels can contain different target groups. It should be noted that the micro-laboratory does not necessarily need to be located on a single chip, but rather could be in discrete modules or configured in any other manner. While DNA or RNA testing is the preferred method, any other type of biological testing is within the scope of the present invention. 
         [0021]    The fluid prepared and tagged in the second section of the device is allowed to enter a particular group of the channels containing the target sensors in the third part of the device shown as a micro-laboratory in  FIG. 1 . After sufficient exposure time for binding, the chosen channels are flushed and the markers are counted using a photo or radioactive counting technique or any other counting technique depending on the marker type. Various reagents may be used and stored on the chip and can be possibly reloaded by an optional fill tube or device  8 . 
         [0022]    The key to reuse and hence a device that could last a period of time without being replaced is the use of only a select number of micro-channels on each test run. For example, if a chip contained 10,000 micro-channels, and it was desired to test for 50 different bio-materials or pathogens, the channels could be divided into groups of 50 with the target DNA pattern repeated 2000 times. Many other combinations are possible. Mechanical, magnetostrictive, or magnetic nano-valves could control the exact group of channels that would be used for a given test. 
         [0023]    Normally, it would be desirable to flush the used micro-channels after a test to remove excess marker material that would inject noise into subsequent measurements. A flush and pump system draining into a waste storage receptacle could be used as shown in  FIG. 1 . Also, after each test, the filter could be flushed with material sufficient to remove most of any remaining bin-material before starting the next collection cycle. 
         [0024]    Turning to  FIG. 2 , an example layout of a laboratory-on-a-chip  11  is seen. The entire micro-laboratory can be mounted on a substrate  1 . A inlet-outlet tube  4  can intersect a valve  9  to route incoming sample fluid into a matrix  10  that directs it into particular micro-channels  6  for testing. Reagents can be stored on the chip in small bins  3  that can also be routed into selected channels  6 . These bins  3  can be optionally refilled with reagent by means of a filler  8 . An optional power supply  2  and optional processor  5  can control the operation. 
         [0025]    An example test sequence in this embodiment is shown in flowchart form in  FIG. 3  and could first collect ambient air for a given test period (which would depend on the efficacy of the filter. When enough time had passed to collect enough bin-material to exceed the a noise floor, the filter could be fluidized or washed to collect the material suspended. Possible sampling times could be four to eight hours between washes; however, any times are within the scope of the present invention. The liquid could then be processed and forced into micro-channels for binding. The micro-channels could then be flushed of unbound material. Photo or other counting could then take place and be tallied for each type of target. Finally, the used channels could optionally be totally flushed of all material using an appropriate reagent. Such flushing of used channels would prevent photo-contamination by left over tags on subsequent tests in other channels. The cycle could then be repeated using a different group of channels each cycle. 
         [0026]    An embodiment of a data collection and data reporting system is shown in  FIG. 4 . Microcontrollers in various distributed biosensor modules can locally control the sequence of testing and store raw counts from the photo circuits. These controllers can then optionally communicate by any means back to a central logging station or can actually log and reduce data itself for direct readout. Typically communication can be by wire, wireless, internet through a telephone line or a wireless link or wireless network, fiber optic or any other communications method. Any type of communication through any type of communication network is within the scope of the present invention. 
         [0027]    A biosensor data collection point such as that described could be wall-mounted or could simply be a unit that is placed in position. The unit could accept input data and could be optionally equipped with a visual display. Location data could be entered directly into the unit, or the unit could simply be numbered. GPS could also determine location. Any method of determining where the unit was located when the data was taken is within the scope of the present invention. 
         [0028]    One of these units could be moved to different locations, or many such units could be used to simultaneously report data could be used. Communications could take place over the internet or by any other means to one or more central locations where the data could be reduced and trends taken or alarms issued. For example, in a hospital setting, an alarm might be issued if the incidence of a certain pathogen increased beyond a normal level (especially dangerous airborne pathogens). If more than one test unit were used in a system, the data could be polled or can be reported asynchronously. Also, a unit could report back when it had run out of micro-channels and thus required a chip replacement. 
         [0029]    The chip sensor or sensors in a particular reporting unit would normally be replaced at various intervals, either when they ran out of channels, or when it was desired to run tests against different targets. Specialized chips pre-loaded with targets could be available. For example, there could be specialized hospital units that checked an array of common hospital pathogens; there could be mold and fungi units that checked for various species of these bio-contaminants; there could be commercial building indoor air quality units that checked for both some common mold and common pathogens such as flew strains or strains of the common cold. 
         [0030]    Reporting units could be combined with other indoor air quality monitoring units to also include temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, toxics such as CO along with bio-contaminants as shown in  FIG. 4 . 
         [0031]    The present invention has presented various descriptions and illustrations. One skilled in the art will recognize that many changes and variations are possible. Such changes and variations are within the scope of the present invention.