Espira, Inc. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A15-064
Espira, Inc. — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.
Phase II SBIR prototype / development signal
- Phase II is where Department of Defense funds deeper R&D after feasibility. Incumbents with Phase II history are serious competitors on adjacent topics.
- Use this award as past-performance context and to map customer organizations for STRATFI/TACFI-style transition planning.
- Obligated amount $999,903 is consistent with substantial Phase II-scale effort; compare to related awards from the same agency.
- Topic code A15-064 links this award to a solicitation family — search the same topic stem for incumbents and recompete timing.
- Amount
- $999,903
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Army
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- Topic
- A15-064
- Solicitation
- 15.1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- UT
- Period
- 2017-01-23 → 2020-10-31
Description
Espira has developed a Biohazard Analyzer (BA) for rapid pathogen detection. Espira’s Biohazard Analyzer goes beyond lab culturing of indicator coliforms and E.coli by detecting a suite of specific bacteria, parasites and viruses in the same test. Total organisms and viable organisms are separately reported for each pathogen. A typical Biohazard Analyzer test cycle is under 1 hour. This includes automated sample collection, concentration, and detection and can be operated by minimally trained personnel. For this proposal we are applying our BA towards monitoring of 5 bacterial targets, 5 parasite targets and 5 viral targets. The current approaches to monitor these pathogens are laborious and time consuming. None of the devices is multiplexed enough to accommodate such large variety of pathogens as requested in the solicitation. Typically, more than 24 hours are required with relatively large lab requirements and trained technicians to detect the content of pathogens in food and water. In this proposal to Army we are planning to test the feasibility of our technology towards an integrated (single process) and automated instrument for near-real time in line diagnostics with 100 ml water and 25 gm food sample seeded with known quantity of pathogens of interest.