Our lab was formed by a group of lifelong Michiganders and experienced analytical chemists in response to new ecological and human health hazards. Among the most concerning of these threats is a class of emerging contaminants collectively known as “PFAS”. The rapidly expanding awareness of the presence of these highly toxic and persistent pollutants in many of our precious Michigan waters has created an enormous increase in the demand for testing. Our chemists have decades of experience in environmental chemistry, pollutant remediation, and clinical toxicology. We are currently working to offer low-cost testing of drinking water and groundwater sources for PFAS and heavy metal contamination to all Michigan residents.

GAIA Labs is dedicated to the idea that *everyone* is entitled to know that their water is safe to drink, and their food is safe to eat. Unfortunately, many vulnerable people either postpone, or are entirely unable to verify the safety of their own water due to the significant expense traditionally involved. High prices, lengthy turnaround times, and inconsistent results for PFAS testing are encountered from many large environmental testing labs. These factors are a result of the labor intensive and time-consuming processes required for testing PFAS at the extremely low levels at which they remain toxic. This crisis facing our great state can only begin to be understood and addressed by massively increasing the scope and availability of testing.

Rather than offer an “impressively expansive - but often useless” suite of tests for all possible contaminants occurring in an overly broad range of media, GAIA is uniquely focused on the specific challenges affecting our communities today. By dedicating our entire operation towards PFAS and heavy metals testing of drinking and ground water we are able to more efficiently streamline every step of the process - from sample collection all the way through to delivery of your results.

Our proprietary analytical process leverages the very cutting-edge in sample preparation techniques and testing, as well as the most sensitive analytical equipment available anywhere in the world. Advanced robotic liquid handling systems and up-scaled fully automated solid-phase extraction processes have allowed us to minimize human intervention in the test processes developed by our expert chemists. By eliminating many of these burdensome and time-consuming manual procedures involved in traditional PFAS testing, we have increased the reliability and consistency of results, while reducing cost and turnaround times.