Low-level detection of Cryptosporidium parvum in field water using optical microfluidic biosensors

Cryptosporidium parvum is a difficult-to-detect protozoan that causes diarrhea in the healthy adults and death in immunocompromised individuals. While it is easy to understand the transmission routes of Cryptosporidium, it is currently difficult to identify low concentrations of Cryptosporidium, especially when following EPA method 1623, which can easily require tens of liters of water to get a positive signal. The current detection method is unacceptable and severely inefficient when taking into account the time that goes into concentrating a sample, actual assays, and training associated with the assays. Using our method, it is possible to use only 15 μL of sample, which is an immunoagglutination assay that uses Mie scatter intensity changes to detect different Cryptosporidium concentrations. In addition to creating a standard curve using a clean sample matrix (i.e., phosphate buffered saline), field samples were collected from a chlorine treated swimming pool, a sump located on a farm, and a turtle pond. Each sample had different intensity changes but the trend represented within the data was the same. This assay has a detection limit of 100-101 oocysts/mL and can be done in as little as 10 minutes.