Bioaerosols

A significant fraction of atmospheric aerosol particles are either living (microorganisms) or of biological origin (dander, plant and insect debris, etc.). Humans, animals and plants constantly emit microscopic particles of cellular material and protein that can account for up to 25% of atmospheric aerosols. Target bioaerosol particles can be considered information-rich packets that carry biochemical information specific to the living organisms present in the collection settings. Our group is interested in determining the feasibility of bioaerosol fingerprinting based on current understanding of cellular debris in aerosol and arguments regarding sampling, sensitivity, separation and detection schemes.

Our current experimental work has focused on preliminary studies involving the collection and examination of bioaerosol samples from various indoor and outdoor (local and international) environments in order to relate the information obtained from the sample analysis with the corresponding collection setting

Publications

Ground level environmental protein concentrations in various ecuadorian environments: potential uses of aerosolized protein for ecological research. Sarah J.R. Staton, Andrea Woodward, Josemar A. Castillo, Kelly Swing, Mark A. Hayes Ecological Indicators, 2014, 48, 389-395 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.08.036. article

Identifying indoor environmental patterns from bioaerosol material using HPLC. Sarah J. R. Staton, Josemar A. Castillo, Thomas J. Taylor, Pierre Herckes and Mark A. Hayes* Anal. Bioanal. 2013, 405(1), 352-357. DOI: 10.1007/s00216-012-6495-4. article

Exploring the feasibility of bioaerosol analysis as a novel fingerprinting technique. Josemar A. Castillo, Sarah J. R. Staton, Thomas J. Taylor, Pierre Herckes, Mark A. Hayes* Anal. Bioanal. 2012, 403(1), 15-26. DOI: 10.1007/s00216-012-5725-0, PMID: 22311424. article

Future Directions

Identifying and integrating appropriate sampling, separation technologies as well as pattern identification and statistical methods to maximize the information that can be obtained from the environments of bioaerosol collection. Intellectual property being pursued, some claims granted, other pending (System and Method for Automated Bioparticle Recognition, App. No. 14/474,267, filed 2014-09-01).