Zeteo Tech has been awarded a contract of up to $6.5 million (including options) from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop and test a new sensor technology that enables real-time detection of aerosolised biological threat agents including bacteria, viruses, and toxins. The contract was awarded in support of the Department's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T).
DHS S&T is working to develop, test and deploy new technologies that will decrease the time required to detect a biological incident, currently up to 12-36 hours. The sensor to be developed under this program is intended to contain component technologies that would have both trigger and detector functions, and improve current capabilities by reducing the timeframe to minutes.
"By combining both technologies, the sensor we are developing offers the potential for continuous air monitoring with the ability to rapidly and accurately identify biological particles indicative of a bioterrorist event," said Mike McLoughlin, VP of Research at Zeteo Tech.