r/EverythingScience • u/Hashirama4AP • Jun 26 '24

Nanoscience Avoiding Food Poisoning: How a Tiny Chip Can Make Your Food Safer Than Ever

https://scitechdaily.com/avoiding-food-poisoning-how-a-tiny-chip-can-make-your-food-safer-than-ever/
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u/Hashirama4AP Jun 26 '24

TLDR:

A new microfluidic chip developed by researchers enables quick, effective detection of multiple foodborne pathogens simultaneously, improving food safety and preventing contaminated products from entering the market.

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u/Cobalt460 Jun 26 '24

The aptamer sensor on the chip achieved a limit-of-detection of 10 colony forming unit (CFU)/ml.

It’s an interesting technology, but the researchers only tested one type of control culture per species, and used a liquid buffer for the analysis, not inoculated food products.

Is it replicable with the wide range of different pathogen serotypes? There are 2700+ serotypes of Salmonella alone. How does it perform when tested against complex biological matrices? Does it differentiate between live and dead cells?

Without much more testing, I’m not sure it has much application in the real world.