Engineered Microbial Co-Cultures to Detect and Degrade Organophosphates

Can we detect and degrade organophosphate pesticides in the environment? Can we scale this technology for autonomously deployable monitoring?

Research Strategy:
(*) Engineer two microbial strains to act together to degrade pesticides and detect their degradation products.
(*) Incorporate strains into handheld electrochemical device for on-person monitoring.
(*) Develop autonomous devices based on these strains for continuous environmental monitoring.

Organophosphates, commonly used as pesticides, are extremely toxic to humans. Though some have been discontinued, many of these toxic chemicals remain widely available and continue to be used in agriculture and mosquito control, often aerosolized for distribution. Most detection strategies monitor organophosphate degradation products in blood and urine following exposure, with few examples of detection at the time of dispersal. The Furst Lab will engineer microbial cocultures for the targeted electrochemical detection and degradation of these harmful compounds. This approach provides a modular, adaptable strategy to detect and degrade harmful toxins and is expandable to additional toxic compounds.