Environmental molecular diagnostics (EMDs) is a group of advanced and emerging techniques used to analyze biological and chemical characteristics of soils, sediments, groundwater, and surface water. Many of these tools first served applications in medicine, defense, and industry. However, scientists have made great advances in adapting and applying environmental molecular diagnostics for site characterization, remediation, monitoring, and closure. Environmental molecular diagnostics are important and valuable because they can provide key information not available using traditional analytical methods.
The Environmental Molecular Diagnostics Fact Sheets (EMD-1, 2011) include ten fact sheets that introduce different environmental molecular diagnostics tools and explain how to use them in environmental management. The fact sheets cover Introduction to Environmental Molecular Diagnostics, Compound Specific Isotope Analysis, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction, Microbial Fingerprinting Methods, Microarrays, Stable Isotope Probing, Enzyme Activity Probes, Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, and EMD Sampling Methods.
The updated guidance, Environmental Molecular Diagnostics: New Site Characterization and Remediation Enhancement Tools (EMD-2, 2013), explains in greater detail how these tools can support site investigation, cleanup, and monitoring.
Topic(s): Advanced Site Characterization, EMD, Remediation Technologies, Site Characterization
