$6m funding for parasite research

3 teams from NTU, NUS to come up with faster ways of detecting water contaminant
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 26 Jun 09;

RESEARCHERS here are developing ways to speed up the detection of a common parasite that causes more than half of the world's cases of diarrhoea from drinking contaminated water.

Three teams of scientists - two from Nanyang Technological University and another from the National University of Singapore - now have the money to pay for their projects: $6 million from the Environment and Water Industry Development Council (EWI). Their mission: To come up with, in three years, a prototype device that can detect the parasite within an hour.

Current methods take six hours - too long by the reckoning of Professor Avner Adin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Now a principal investigator with one of the NTU research teams, he explained that detection speed is crucial because water flows at a speed of one metre per second in pipes. 'This means that in six hours, the parasite could have travelled 20km, potentially contaminating large sections of a population before it is detected,' he said.

The bug he is referring to is Cryptosporidium, which causes not only diarrhoea but also intestinal bleeding, especially in children under nine years old and in the elderly.

The NUS team, led by Associate Professor Lim Kian Meng of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has the blueprint for a method of concentrating, trapping and detecting the parasite.

One NTU project involves developing a portable microbial detection laboratory no bigger than a laptop. The system uses an innovative filtration method to trap the eggs of the parasite and then subject these to genetic testing.

The other NTU team is developing a biophotonic chip device which uses laser technology sensitive enough to pick out even a single parasitic cell in 10 litres of water.

The teams' research proposals are a response to an EWI challenge issued last July to devise faster ways of detecting micro-organisms in water.

National water agency PUB's technology director Harry Seah said it was timely to challenge conventional ways of detecting contaminants in water supplies which are labour-intensive and take too long to produce results.

Professor Lui Pao Chuen, who chairs the EWI's evaluation panel, said the projects stood out for their 'out-of-the-box thinking, fundamentally sound science and practicality of implementation'.

The perk is that the technology can later be used to detect other contaminants found in water, Mr Seah said.

EWI has distributed $32 million in research funding to 27 projects over the past three years.