Extra personal information such as gender, or chemical information such as drug or explosive could be extracted from the fingerprint. Because of their uniqueness, fingerprint analysis has become a powerful tool for identifying criminals in forensic science since the early 20th century. We have demonstrated the successful application of magnetic powder dusting method for latent fingerprint development using AIE fingerprint powders on various substrates. Compared with the previous solution method, the AIE fingerprint powders enjoy several advantages, such as simple operation, high fluorescent intensity, high resolution, applicable for various smooth and porous substrates etc. AIE fingerprint powder technology now has been developed in the stage of industrialization and built up close cooperation with Guangzhou Yingzhou Law Enforcement Technology Ltd. We built a pilot line for the synthesis of AIEgens which was used in AIE fingerprint powders. 1 kg of AIEgen and 100 kg of AIE fingerprint powders are successfully synthesized. The products are stable and enjoy excellent performance. 100 kg of AIE fingerprint powders have been delivered to the cooperative company. The product is sold and promoted in Guangdong province firstly and we are trying our best to establish a complete sales channel in mainland.
We heavily rely on fishery and fish has been a popular food in our daily life. When we pay more and more attentions on food safety, the freshness of fish is a fundamental issue in food industry. In addition to bad smell, the spoiled fish causes a wide variety of health problems. Conventionally the freshness of fish is evaluated by the concentration of the total volatile base amine (TVB-N). Volatile basic nitrogen (VBN) mainly includes three kinds of gas molecules, ammonia (NH3), dimethylamine (DMA), and trimethylamine (TMA), which are produced by the spoilage bacteria after the fish dies. Whereas the TVB-N value has been an international standard for fish freshness, its experimental determination is rather time consuming. The conventional titration method for VBN measurement usually takes about 4 hours. Our centre has developed AIEgen DQ-2. The emission of DQ2 was lighted up in the presence of amine. It was coated on the fiber during sol-gel process, and can be used for on-site visually determination of amine. The detection time can be shortened within 5 min. The limit of detection was 0.17 mg/m3. The device can be made easily and with low cost. In the future, the device will be applied not only for family use but also in fish market, which can guarantee the food safety for public.
Silver staining is a high-precision biomolecule (protein and nucleic acid) color-developing method. With the research of life sciences and the development of medical diagnosis, the market volume of silver staining in 2017 is about 360 million US dollars (about 2 billion yuan), and the compound annual growth rate is expected to be 5.6% in the next 5 years according to the 2018 Persistence Market Research (PMR) report. In actual use, silver staining faces several practical problems: low reproducibility, inability to quantify protein content, strong background, often requiring sensitizers (such as glutaraldehyde) and consequent subsequent mass spectrometry invalid. We use silver ion specific AIE feature to replace the traditional silver reduction chromogenic (silver particle generation) process, which greatly avoids the defects of traditional silver dyeing and provides a new silver staining method. Drawing on traditional silver nitrate staining, we developed silver-AIE dyeing technology. The technique is simple to operate and exhibits linear properties in a very wide concentration range, and can be applied to quantitative analysis of one-dimensional gel and quantitative/contrast analysis of two-dimensional gel.
Endotoxin is a cell wall component of Gram-negative bacteria that is released after bacterial death and dissolved. It will cause fever, microcirculatory disturbances, endotoxin shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and even death if endotoxin enters the bloods. Products such as biological products, injectable pharmaceuticals, chemicals, radiopharmaceuticals, antibiotics, vaccines, dialysates, and medical devices (such as disposable syringes, implantable biological materials, etc.) can only be used after passing the test of endotoxin residues. In addition, bacterial endotoxin testing is also of great significance in clinical diagnosis. Some common diseases, such as infectious diseases, hepatitis, pancreatitis, intestinal diseases, etc., are closely related to the presence of endotoxin. According to the industry research report on bacterial endotoxin testing, the global market for endotoxin testing in 2016 is 620 million US dollars. It is expected that the growth rate in the next 5 years will reach a compound annual growth rate of 12.23%. The global endotoxin testing market in 2019 will reach $ 823 million. We invented a fluorescent probe that can be used for rapid detection of endotoxin content in injections such as sodium chloride injection (physiological saline) and ambroxol hydrochloride. The probe has strong anti-interference ability and covers a wide range of 0.1-10 EU/mL, covering the endotoxin limit (0.1-5 EU/mL) of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia for drugs requiring endotoxin testing in practical use.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major health issue worldwide. More than 600 million people suffer from CKD, causing millions of deaths every year. At present, the best way to treat CKD is to achieve early discovery and early treatment. The detection of urine albumin is an efficient way to determine the function of the kidney, assist in the diagnosis of various diseases in other systems, conduct dynamic observation of the disease and evaluate the efficacy, etc. We developed a kind of a water-soluble fluorescent probe with AIE features for urine albumin detection and quantitation based on our previous studies. We have collected more than 100 real patient urine samples and detected the amount of their albumins. The result demonstrate that this AIEgen can be used as an real time and rapid way for urine albumin detection and enjoys a low detection limit (down to 0.0137 mg/L) and high accuracy (up to 98.9%). It shows good market application prospects and is suitable for developing into kits for home and personal health monitoring.
We developed a portable fingerprint shooting device based on the developed AIE green magnetic powder which is equipped with a specific light source, and can clearly capture the on-site photos of AIE fingerprint display powder in various environments to solve the problem of the need to carry powders of multiple colors that contrast with the background and the low success rate of display. The device starts to have a trial test in the public security system. We also self-developed a comparative reading app that can quickly confirm the fingerprint information and suspected persons. It can retrieve personal information in the relevant database and carry out market promotion. And it can be combined with the current cloud technology to connect to the surveillance image recognition system, quickly confirm the movement path of the suspected person, and achieve the seamless docking purpose of collection-identification-monitoring.