Highly sensitive rapid fluorescence detection of protein residues on surgical instruments

There is a risk of contamination of surgical instruments by nfectious protein residues, in particular, prions which are the agents for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans. They are exceptionally resistant to conventional sterilization, therefore it is important to detect their presence as contaminants so that alternative cleaning procedures can be applied. We describe the development of an optimized detection system for fluorescently labelled protein, suitable for in-hospital use. We show that under optimum conditions the technique can detect ~100 zeptomoles/mm2 with an area scan speed of ~20 cm2/s and for using the system to detect other agents of biomedical interest. A theoretical analysis and experimental measurements will be discussed.