Boston MicroSystems PicoSensor technology is an ideal choice for portable, easy-to-use sensors for a variety of applications related to health and safety.

Medical Diagnostics for Pulmonary Disease

Although potentially powerful, medical diagnostic and detection technologies based on biological markers (DNA, RNA, proteins) are both relatively expensive and relatively slow, limiting their widespread adoption.  This particularly true for rapid tests for use in doctors offices, clinics, and in resource poor settings including third world countries and disaster sites.

Recent studies have suggested that the detection and analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath samples could be used as a diagnostic to detect certain medical conditions. For example, the presence and/or relative concentrations of a panel of VOCs in a breath sample could be used to diagnose infection by a viral or bacterial pathogen such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). Current diagnostic techniques for TB rely on either cell culturing, which can take weeks to produce a result, or faster but far more costly and complex molecular DNA techniques such as PCR. In contrast, a diagnostic based on detection of VOC marker compounds in breath would be fast and easy to administer, relatively low cost with no expensive reagents, and would produce results in a few minutes making it suitable for use in clinical point-of-care settings.

Water Quality

The quality of our water supply is of the utmost importance with regards to the national health and safety. Assaults on the quality of our water supply can come from industrial pollution, the use of potentially harmful chemicals in consumer products, and natural catastrophes such as earth quakes and volcanic eruptions that compromise the water. The private sector has recognized the commercial opportunity in  insuring a high quality , plentiful water supply and has made huge investments in this regard; yet the supply of plentiful, high quality water has been diminishing.

BMS PicoSensor technology can be applied to detect contaminants including benzene, chloronated aromatics, antibiotics and other drug molecules put into the waste stream and that makes their way into the water supply, plasticizers such as phthalates, insecticides, and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium.