A rapid, record-setting water contamination detector
SPID partners with Synthetic Biology to develop integrated sensors for the detection of water contaminants
April 3, 2025
A pioneering water contamination detection tool, developed at Northwestern University, is revolutionizing chemical monitoring with unparalleled sensitivity. By merging synthetic biology with nanotechnology, this innovation detects toxic metals like lead and cadmium at concentrations as low as parts per billion—delivering results in minutes.
Built on decades of research, the technology integrates nanomechanical microcantilevers with ROSALIND, a cutting-edge biosensor that fluoresces when pollutants exceed safe limits. This hybrid system, created by a team including NUANCE Director Vinayak P. Dravid, Center for Synthetic Biology's Co-Director, Julius Lucks, and NUANCE Center SPID Facility Manager Gajendra Shekhawat, offers a faster, more precise approach to water safety testing.
Interfacing microcantilevers with allosteric transcription factor biosensors. (a) Microcantilevers are first coated with dsDNA containing aTF operator sequences. aTF binding to the immobilized dsDNA causes microcantilever bending. Binding of a specific chemical ligand to the aTF causes an allosteric change, releasing aTFs from the dsDNA, resulting in microcantilever debending, which can be detected optically. (b–d) Interfacing a microcantilever with TetR that binds to a DNA operator sequence, tetO, and responds to the antibiotic chemical anhydrotetracycline (aTc). (b) Microcantilever bending in response to various concentrations of TetR. (c) Microcantilever debending with 1 μM TetR and various concentrations of aTc. Carbenicillin (Carb.), an antibiotic not recognized by TetR, was used as a control. Debending is computed as the difference in microcantilever bending (deflection) between the sensing microcantilever, induced with aTc, and the average bending of the control microcantilevers, induced with 1 μM carbenicillin (Methods/Experimental Methods and Figure S2). (d) A dose–response curve for debending at 11 min. Data in parts (b)–(d) are for n = 3 technical replicates, where each technical replicate is represented by a solid line (b, c) or point (d). Shaded regions in (b) and (c) represent ± 1 standard deviation about the mean of all technical replicates at each condition.
