How Many Particles are Present in the Air?

Bioaerosol Detection Using an Air Particle Counter Angie Rivera1, Parag Vaishampayan2

1 William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ 07470 2 Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, Jet Propulsion Lab, California Institute of Technology

ReferencesLandrid, A., A Bissery, and G.Kac “Monitoring Air Sampling in Operating Theatres: Can Particle Counting Replace Microbiological Sampling?” Journal of Hospital Infection: 27-29. Print. Li, Chih-Shan, and Po-An Hou “Bioaerosol Characteristics in Hospital Clean Rooms” Science of The Total Environment: 169-76. Print Lin, Ying. "Quantitative Determination of Bacterial Spore Association with Particles in Clean room Environment." 2012 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Print."BioVigilant Videos - BioVigilant." BioVigilant. Web. 7 June 2015.

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

This study has the following objectives: 1.Test BioVigilant air monitoring system in JPL

clean rooms for particle size distribution and biological particle counting simultaneously.

2.Test a relationship between JPL clean room class levels and total particle counts while in operation.

3.Test statistical correlation between biological particle counts by BioVigilant and conventional air sample system based bioburden (ATP and qPCR approaches).

We need to be extremely careful when we send spacecraft out to space, we do not want to contaminate any planetary bodies with earth’s-life

[Forward contamination]. We also do not want to bring back biological material that might be harmful to our planet [Backward contamination].

Hence, spacecraft are assembled in clean rooms. Biological particles present in clean rooms could eventually fall and contaminate the spacecraft.

• BioVigilant system could potentially be used for real-time, continuous environmental monitoring of clean rooms during assembly.

• Data obtained from continuous air monitoring using BioVigilant system could result into a reliable model of bioaerosol-particle transport, which will help us to predict the cross contamination risks during spacecraft assembly.

•Higher biological particles were observed during working hours than at rest samples. •Particle size distribution and relative biological particle counts were obtained. •Relative high numbers of 0.5- 1 micrometer size particles were obtain in most of the samples. •Data obtain by techniques such as ATP and qPCR will be correlated with BioVigilant particle counts

ISO-8SAF HB1 airlock

ISO-8318- Optics Lab

ISO-7103-Electrical Engineering

ISO-6233- Cleaning Facility

Air samples were collected inside several clean room levels: ISO 8, ISO 7 & ISO 6

•BioVigilant IMD-350 and Coriolis instruments ran in parallel inside each clean room. •Work and night samples were taken for at least three consecutive days in the same room.•Two samples a day were collected along with the metadata:6 hours working shift and 6 hours at rest, overnight.

Validation Analysis

qPCR:

Search for amount of DNA in the sample which amplify portions of 16S rRNA.

ATP: ATP is the energy in the cell, we check

for internal and external ATP to see

the presence of active biological particles.

NASA Standards Spores Assay:

The higher the colonies counted, the higher microbial presence in the sample.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

California Institute of Technology

Pasadena, California

www.nasa.gov

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program under Grant No.318013 573100 G3000 10. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation