Grant: Alliance Grants

Chemical trackers are commonly used in the agricultural, environmental, and energy sector for monitoring and identification of substances such as chemicals, pollutants, liquid or gas flows, and pathogens. The vast majority of trackers currently in use are halogenated or inorganic compounds that enable detection by mass spectroscopy. These existing technologies often lack the sensitivities for their intended application and is often a major cause of concern due to their inherent toxicity and damage to the local environment. In addition, the number of unique chemical trackers are often limited. We propose the use of DNA encapsulated in nanoparticles as a versatile green alternative. These encapsulated DNAs do not contain hazardous chemicals and are stable in a wide range of environments. They can be custom designed to have unique sequence identifiers similarly to a barcode. This barcoded ability will ultimately lead to an extremely large library of trackers and is a significant advantage over the current standard. Furthermore, DNAs recovered from these nanoparticles are detected through amplification by polymerase chain reaction, thus allowing for exceptionally high sensitivity. Successful development of encapsulate DNA barcodes will allow the industrial partner Cytodiagnostics to provide a new product platform for its existing and new customers, both in Canada and the rest of the world.