Or wait…
Sign in Register
News
Science
Market Trends
Business
Policy
Views
Food Safety & Quality
Promotional Features
Site Archive
Multimedia
Sectors
Bakery
Meat
Beverage
Confectionery
Dairy
Healthy foods
Prepared foods
Snacks
Site Archive
Multimedia
Trends
COVID-19
CBD and hemp
Digitalisation
Free-from
Innovation and NPD
Mergers and acquisitions
Transparency and supply chain
Start-ups and disruptors
Organics
GM food
Diet and health
Food waste
Alternative proteins
Sustainability
Natural and clean label
Reformulation
Labelling
Site Archive
Multimedia
Resources
Type of resources
Events
All Events
Shows & Conferences
Editorial Webinars
Online Events
Events
Podcast
By Gwen Ridler
– Last updated on GMT
Related tags: Food safety, Meat & Seafood
Describing the rationale behind the biosensor, lead author Alaa Selim said: “Making a rapid, easy-to-use biosensor for people to check the quality of the food they are eating is empowering. We wanted to make a device that anyone could use, that is disposable and contained no toxic materials.”
The sensor works by identifying the presence of the toxin putrescine in beef via cell-based protein synthesis – proteins are produced using the ‘biological machinery’ of a cell without actually using the living cell.
Visibly see the toxin
By adding putrescine to this cell-based system, the researchers found they could visually see the toxin under UV light after an hour. After four hours, they were confident their readings were highly accurate.
Test were then made on pieces of beef kept in a freezer, in a refrigerator and at room temperature to see how much putrescine accumulated over the span of several days. The results from their biosensor to those of a high-tech chromatography used in food inspection were somewhat correlated.
Despite the success of these trials, the researchers warned that the biosensor won’t be commercially available any time soon.
Still a ways off
Steve Shih, Concordia University research chair in microfluidics for biology and chemical analysis added: “We believe our work is a first step toward using sensors in the meat preparation industry.
“In addition, we believe this type of sensing can be used for other fields like environmental sampling of heavy metal contamination and cancer and disease diagnostics.”
Selim’s co-authors include her former PhD student colleagues at the Shih Microfluidics Lab, James Perry, Mohamed Nasr and Jay Pimprikar, as well as Steve Shih, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. The full research paper can be found in the journal Applied Bio Materials.
Copyright - Unless otherwise stated all contents of this web site are © 2022 - William Reed Ltd - All Rights Reserved - Full details for the use of materials on this site can be found in the Terms & Conditions
Related topics: Meat
We will not publish your email address on the website
These comments have not been moderated. You are encouraged to participate with comments that are relevant to our news stories. You should not post comments that are abusive, threatening, defamatory, misleading or invasive of privacy. For the full terms and conditions for commenting see clause 7 of our Terms and Conditions ‘Participating in Online Communities’. These terms may be updated from time to time, so please read them before posting a comment. Any comment that violates these terms may be removed in its entirety as we do not edit comments. If you wish to complain about a comment please use the "REPORT ABUSE" button or contact the editors.
On-demand webinars
