Engineer researching 3-D laser imaging to identify bacteria

Engineers at UConn are conducting research that could revolutionize the speed and method by which bacteria and micro-organisms can be automatically identified – work that has the potential to affect fields ranging from homeland security to medicine and biology.

Currently, if public health officials want to test certain aspects of a water supply, for example, a sample must first be taken from the water, then brought to a lab and analyzed chemically before any findings can be determined.

Similarly, if a physician needs to find out whether a patient’s blood or skin is contaminated with a certain kind of bacteria or other organism, a time-consuming process must be followed that can take hours, or even days.

Bahram Javidi, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering, is leading a team of researchers in developing a new three-dimensional optical-computer imaging and recognition process that would identify and analyze samples on-site in real time.

He recently published a paper on the subject in the journal Optics Express, a leading publication in the field.

“This is one of the most exciting projects we are working on,” says Javidi. His work to date has been funded with a $500,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Javidi’s goal is to be able to load a sample from the air, blood, or water, for example, into a portable system on hand to detect and classify the types of bacteria that are contained in it.

The system would use laser technology to produce a three-dimensional image of the organisms the sample contains. The image would then be analyzed by a specially programmed computer to determine its pattern and classify it.

Bacteria and other organisms have distinct topography and signatures, says Javidi, that can best be identified through a sophisticated, three-dimensional image.