# A Paper-Based Synthetic Biology Platform for the On-Demand Testing of Water Quality

> **NIH NIH R43** · STEMLOOP, INC. · 2021 · $52,000

## Abstract

Safe drinking water is essential for public health, yet is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities and
aging infrastructure that contaminate it with heavy metals and other toxins. This is especially true near Superfund
and brownfield sites, where industrial activity is either known or suspected to have resulted in pollution of water
sources. Most notable is the contamination of drinking water with lead and arsenic, which can result in lead
poisoning and arsenicosis, respectively, and can contribute to developmental disorders, physical abnormalities,
and cancer. Upon discovery, these contaminants can be mitigated by existing purification technologies.
However, as recent events such as the crises in Flint, MI or Newark, NJ exemplify, the combination of improper
water management and filtration failure is leading to major public health threats. Part of the solution to the
challenge of safe water management is frequent water quality testing. However, reliable testing remains limited
to analytical chemistry techniques that are costly, time consuming, and require substantial laboratory
infrastructure and technical expertise. This complicates the large scale testing needed to address critical water
management issues, and has been a large barrier for the routine testing of water supplies by consumers. Here
we propose to address these issues by developing a new technology platform that will allow for the reliable, low-
cost, on-site and on-demand monitoring of harmful contaminants within water supplies. Our technology is built
from recent innovations in synthetic biology that allow the repurposing of natural allosteric transcription factors
that can sense specific toxic ligands, such as heavy metals, and respond by activating gene expression. The
use of cell-free synthetic biology reactions that support gene expression processes and visible gene expression
reporters allows the assembly of “cell-free biosensors”, which are in vitro reactions that can be freeze-dried for
long term storage and simple distribution. Rehydration of these sensors with a water sample then activates the
reaction and produces a detectable signal in the presence of a toxic compound. This Phase I proposal details a
series of complementary aims for achieving improved specificity and sensitivity of this biosensing platform, in
the context of detecting lead and arsenic as model target contaminants of significant health concern, and
incorporating it within a convenient paper-based format suitable for consumer use. Our approach includes the
development and application of bioinformatic approaches to identify naturally-occurring transcription factor
homologues with improved performance characteristics, high throughput cell-free synthetic biology approaches
to rapidly characterize their performance, and new manufacturing techniques to embed and test these sensors
on paper-based substrates. A successful outcome of this proposal will lead to a multiplexed, paper-based device
that wi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10338037
- **Project number:** 3R43ES031899-01S1
- **Recipient organization:** STEMLOOP, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Khalid Kamal Alam
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $52,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-05-24 → 2021-07-13

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10338037

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10338037, A Paper-Based Synthetic Biology Platform for the On-Demand Testing of Water Quality (3R43ES031899-01S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10338037. Licensed CC0.

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