# Advanced Bioaerosols Technology Core

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK · 2021 · $1,082,054

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract – Advanced Bioaerosol Technology Core
The Advanced Bioaerosol Technology Core (ABTC) will develop a comprehensive suite of innovative
technologies for improved sampling, fractionation, culture, and characterization of influenza virus aerosols to
enable new analytical capabilities in support of the U19 research project goals. The advanced technologies
developed through the ABTC will be employed within each individual research project to yield more effective
studies of airborne transmission and infectivity through a combination of efficient ambient sampling to evaluate
size-dependent distributions of infective virus within the clinical environment, and high-resolution individual
exhaled breath sampling to elucidate the fundamental source terms needed for accurate transmission modeling.
The ABTC team will leverage expertise across the fields of bioengineering, bioaerosol system engineering, and
respiratory virology to develop 5 interconnected technologies for advanced bioaerosol analysis. In Aim 1, a set
of compact instruments will be developed for the collection and parallel size-based fractionation of ambient
environmental aerosols to enable distributed monitoring of airborne virus during the proposed clinical studies. In
Aim 2, a second aerosol sampling instrument employing a unique exhaled breath sampling technology will be
developed to provide high resolution aerosol fractionation and collection, allowing us to evaluate both viable and
non-infective virus emission from individual donors across narrow particle size ranges. To enhance infectivity
characterization for sampled virus particles, a synthetic mucus hydrogel will be advanced in Aim 3 as a novel
sample target for the environmental sampler, providing improved virus capture and cell culture, greatly improving
virus capture and viability for downstream infectivity assays. A digital cell culture array technology will be
developed in Aim 4, enabling the direct isolation of individual aerosol particles captured by the exhaled breath
sampler, and allowing us to evaluate distribution and clustering of both viable and non-infective virus units at
single particle resolution. The ABTC team will also develop an optimized cell line that will be employed for the
analysis of virus collected with the developed instruments to enhance evaluation of infectivity. The core will
validate the developed technologies for aerosol sampling, capture, isolation, culture, and analysis through a set
of ferret studies before integration with the proposed U19 research projects, and will execute the required assays
using clinical samples to support the goals of RP1 and RP2. The results of the ABTC research efforts will yield
the instruments and technologies needed to enhance our understanding of influenza aerobiology, from the
determination of critical source terms to the evaluation of infective particle distributions within the environment,
supporting significant improvements to influenza transm...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10260848
- **Project number:** 1U19AI162130-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK
- **Principal Investigator:** Don L DeVoe
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,082,054
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10260848

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10260848, Advanced Bioaerosols Technology Core (1U19AI162130-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10260848. Licensed CC0.

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