The threat of bioterrorism has spawned an outgrowth of research focused on the development of a system capable of rapid and sensitive detection of pathogenic cells, viruses and biomarkers. The optimal system would exhibit several characteristics. It should be capable of rapidly selecting its target analyte from a complex medium and produce low limit of detection. The system should be portable, easy to use, easily adapted to different situations and capable of continuous monitoring. Finally, it should be able to detect multiple targets while using a minimum of reagents. Currently, no sensor system meets this entire criterion. With these goals in mind, our research group previously developed a fluorescent capillary biosensor. This unique bench-top system exploits the natural specificity of biological recognition between antibody/antigen (immunoassays) or complimentary strands of DNA. For detection, fluorescence is an attractive method due to the wide variety of bright, photo stable fluorophores that are currently available. The glass capillary itself is multifunctional, acting as the sensor surface, the flow through cell and the waveguide, eliminating laborious rinsing steps used in conventional methods such as the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The low limit of detection for proteins (low pg/ml range) produced by the bench-top system rivals the best systems in the literature. Initial tests with the U-PAC have produced a detection limit of about 200pg/ml for mouse IgG. Possible applications and configurations of the U-PAC, including current work focused on cell/spore detection will also be presented.