Dinamics 

Biosensor to Counter Bioterrorism Threat

Dinamics is an ambitious development project aimed at producing an on-line biosensor to monitor and detect potential biohazards in the water supply as a result of terrorist attack.
 
The programme that is co-funded by the European Commission through the 6th Framework Programme is in response to concerns over threats to the security of water supply for human consumption.  This presents a major challenge to water providers, users and governments responsible for ensuring a safe and plentiful supply of water both for personal consumption and industrial use.

Local drinking water and wastewater systems are potential targets for terrorist and other would-be criminals wishing to disrupt and cause harm to community water supplies or wastewater facilities. Added to this, the often isolated and rural locations of treatment works can often make them difficult to secure and patrol – the answer, on-line biomonitoring.

The objective of the DINAMICS project is to develop an integrated and cost-effective nano-biological sensor for detection of bioterrorism and environmental assays. The project’s prime deliverable will be an exploitable lab-on-a-chip prototype device and warning system for the detection of harmful substances in the water supply chain. The integration of these will radically improve upon existing technologies as it will deliver a fast, reliable and quantifiable on-the-spot recognition and detection mechanism based on the nanotechnological assembly of “unlabelled” DNA and its subsequent hybridisation.