About This Project

Protecting ecosystems requires rapid detection of pollutants and pathogens, yet detecting multiple hazards at once remains difficult. Microbial biosensors can sense such threats, but they currently struggle to monitor multiple targets simultaneously. My project will identify compatible hyperspectral reporters that enable simultaneous detection within a single bacterial strain. Combined with our biosensor pipeline, this will support robust tools for environmental monitoring.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Environmental pollution is becoming increasingly complex, with ecosystems often exposed to mixtures of contaminants rather than single compounds. To manage these threats effectively, monitoring tools must detect multiple targets simultaneously over large areas.

Microbial biosensors offer a sustainable, low-cost alternative to conventional monitoring methods, but current systems are limited in the number of signals they can report. The recent introduction of hyperspectral reporters could expand biosensor capabilities. However, too few compatible reporters are available for multiplexed sensing.

I aim to characterize and identify compatible hyperspectral reporters that can be combined within a single biosensor, distinguishing outputs by their unique spectral fingerprints. By expanding this reporter library and integrating it into our existing biosensor pipeline and optical hardware, we aim to enable robust, field-ready microbial biosensors for real-time environmental monitoring.

What is the significance of this project?

Pollution causes 16% of global deaths and threatens 12.5% of species. However, current monitoring of pollutants is plagued by low polling frequencies, reducing the reliability and robustness of the data, and by considerable time lags in the data collection, analysis and reporting. While microbial whole-cell biosensors (MWCBs) have been shown to be a cost-effective, reliable, real-time on-site measurement device, most current biosensors rely on fluorescent or electrochemical reporters, requiring expensive, specialized hardware nearby. This required proximity of the hardware limits the feasibility of widespread environmental monitoring. My project aims to solve this scaling issue by expanding the hyperspectral reporter toolbox for MWCBs. By creating reporter alternatives, this research can propel the practical use of biosensors for widespread environmental sensing.

What are the goals of the project?

The initial goal for the project will be high-throughput engineering of production pathways of various compounds predicted to be hyperspectral reporters by Chemla et al. (2026) in both Saccharomyces cerevisiae CEN.PK113-5 and Pseudomonas putida EM42. Subsequently, the hyperspectral spectrum of microbes producing these compounds will be assessed, with the first goal being the validation of the actual hyperspectral characteristics of these compounds. With the validated compounds, we will use our previously established biosensor chassis strain for the pairwise integration of different reporters with non-overlapping spectra. Analysis of the absorption spectrum of these cells, followed by the attempted separation of the signal coming from each of the hyperspectral reporters, will allow us to evaluate the compatibility of different reporter pairs.