11 February 2025 13h30-14h00
dr. Letitia Fernandez Velasco (CHCH)
CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) threats stem from natural disasters, accidents, or intentional incidents like terrorism, with deliberate threats persisting or rising in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the severe social, political, and economic impacts of CBRN crises, raising EU concerns about potential misuse of CBRN agents by malicious actors. Despite some corrective actions, significant gaps remain in rapidly detecting and monitoring low-volatile chemical and non-volatile biological warfare agents. This motivates our current work on the development of a low-cost and miniaturized modular detection technology based on ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), optionally coupled with other techniques for enabling fast detection and identification of agents of various nature. The innovative device will be supported with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL), which are essential to reduce data dimensionality and uncover complex patterns across more-dimensional datasets, enabling the identification or prediction of unique signatures of hazardous agents within intricate matrices, such as post-blast residues, biological degradation products, GMOs, unknown or emerging pathogens. Furthermore, the device is being designed for seamless deployment across various environments and situations, excelling in scenarios where current handheld systems struggle, such as detecting biological agents. It also aims to drastically reduce analysis times compared to traditional biotests while enabling efficient detection of field-relevant substances, including Fourth-Generation Agents (FGAs). This research is part of the EDF TeChBioT project, now entering its final year. Coordinated by the RMA, the project showcases not only international collaboration but also teamwork within the Belgian Defence, bringing together four different research units to achieve a shared objective. This webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of the background and the results of the project achieved so far.
Teams link: click here.