Luminometer for detecting Bio-Luminescensce
Quick Links on this page:
- What is Bio-Luminescence?
- How Bio-Luminescence works?
- Acknowledgement
- Details
- Challenges in measuring Bio-Luminescence using Silicon Photo-diode

Concept of a Luminometer for Bio-Luminescence measurement developed for CFTRI, Mysore
What is Bio-luminescence?
Source: Wikipedia[External Link]
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission.
Fireflies, anglerfish, and other creatures produce the chemicals luciferin (a pigment) and luciferase (an enzyme).The luciferin reacts with oxygen to create light. The luciferase acts as a catalyst to speed up the reaction, which is sometimes mediated by cofactors such as calcium ions or ATP (Adenosine triphosphate). The chemical reaction can occur either inside or outside the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon.
How Bioluminescence works?
Source: howstuffworks.com[External Link]
Acknowledgement:
Ideas Unlimited developed this for CFTRI (http://www.cftri.com - Central Food and Technological Research Institute, Mysore), for one of their projects to develop a low cost silicon photo-diode based Luminometer, which can detect very low intensity of Bio-Luminescence emitted by biological reactions.
CFTRI is working on Bio-luminescence based applications for detection of food contamination and other applications. In this initiative, as a first step, Ideas Unlimited has conceptualized and designed some prototype setups for experimenting with a silicon photo-diode to sense different bio-luminescence reactions and comparing results generated with lab grade equipment which use more expensive Photo-multiplier tubes.
Details:
A low cost, portable Luminometer, if developed will have tremendous applications in the fields of Agriculture, Food Inspection and Quality Control, Contamination detection, Clinical Pathology and Medical fields.
Experimental setup with Silicon Photo diode and slot to insert sample in a test tube.

Experimental setup optically sealed by the lid befoe measurements.

3d Model of the prototype

Screen shot of the Real time data logging software for Luminometer