PFI-TT: Mobile device-based detection of toxins in food crops to monitor food safety and improve public health

这一创新-技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的广泛影响/商业潜力使多个利益攸关方能够在食品系统价值链的大多数阶段进行食品安全测试，包括个人层面的农民和消费者，食品行业在采购、储存和分销环节，以及援助机构监测食品援助包的安全性。最初的重点将是检测两种真菌毒素，黄曲霉毒素和伏马菌素，这两种毒素都是已知的致癌食品污染物，在包括玉米在内的几种粮食作物中都有发现。许多国家规定了霉菌毒素的最高浓度水平；然而，由于缺乏在需要时评估其浓度的工具，在大多数情况下不能强制执行这些规定。本工作将根据国内外食品安全机构的建议，开发一种快速、低成本、需要点检测的方法，用于确定具有所需灵敏度和特异度的食品安全。此外，该团队将与业务合作伙伴合作，优化技术转让和商业化，使其能够进入市场。预计这项技术有可能显著减少市场上的不安全食品，并改善世界各地的公共健康。拟议项目的重点是开发一种通过检测粮食作物中的黄曲霉毒素(AF)和伏马菌素(FM)来对食品安全进行即时评估的技术。这些真菌毒素可以污染包括玉米、大米和花生在内的几种粮食作物。食用受污染的食物可能会导致癌症和其他不利的健康后果。目前将食品样本送到中央实验室进行食品安全检测的方法需要昂贵的设备，耗时长，需要熟练的技术人员，而且成本效益不高。这项拟议的技术包括一个移动设备，一个定制的试纸，可以接受食物样本提取，并在智能手机应用程序的帮助下进行分析。这款智能手机应用程序运行其成像系统，解释试纸结果，并在几分钟内显示结果。可以将分析结果传输到远程服务器以监控食品安全结果。该项目的主要目标包括开发用于房颤和调频的横向流动分析，优化从粮食作物中提取房颤和/或调频的技术，更新现有的智能手机应用程序以针对房颤和/或调频检测进行定制，以及在实验室进行小规模验证以确定开发的样本-答案-输出分析的性能参数。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is enabling food safety testing at most stages in the food-systems value chain by multiple stakeholders, including farmers and consumers at the individual level, the food industry at the points of procurement, storage, and distribution, and by aid agencies to monitor the safety of food aid packages. The initial focus will be to detect two mycotoxins, aflatoxin and fumonisin, both of which are known cancer-causing food contaminants and are found in several food crops including corn. The maximum concentration levels for mycotoxins have been prescribed by many countries; however, these cannot be enforced in most settings because of lack of tools to assess their concentration at the point-of-need. The present work will develop a rapid, low-cost, point-of-need assay for ascertaining food safety with required sensitivity and specificity as recommended by domestic and international food safety agencies. In addition, the team will work with the business partner to optimize the technology for transfer and commercialization to enable it to reach market. It is anticipated that this technology has the potential to significantly reduce unsafe food from the marketplace and improve public health worldwide. The proposed project is focused on developing a technology for point-of-need assessment of food safety by detection of aflatoxin (AF) and fumonisin (FM) in food crops. These mycotoxins can contaminate several food crops including corn, rice, and peanuts. Consumption of contaminated food can lead to cancer and other adverse health outcomes. The current approach of sending food samples to centralized labs for food safety testing requires expensive equipment, is time-consuming, requires skilled technicians, and is not cost-effective. The proposed technology comprises of a mobile device, a custom-made test strip that accepts food sample extracts and performs the analysis with the help of a smartphone application. The smartphone app operates its imaging system, interprets the test strip results, and displays the results in a few minutes. The analysis results can be transferred to a remote server for monitoring of food safety results. The primary goals of the project include the development of lateral flow assays for AF and FM, optimization of techniques for extracting AF and/or FM from food crops, updating existing smartphone apps to customize them for AF and/or FM detection, and small-scale validation in the lab to determine the performance parameters of the developed sample-in-answer-out assays.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.