A High-Performance Food Pathogen Detection Instrument

描述（由申请人提供）：食品安全仍然是我们社会中人类健康的关键问题。我国的食品系统很容易受到自然病原体和生物恐怖袭击的污染。目前的检测方法是不够的，由于目前使用的耗时和实验室为中心的方法。食品中病原体的快速现场检测仪器是迫切需要的。本项目的目的是评估一种创新的基于毛细管生物分离器/生物反应器的光学生物传感器技术，用于快速检测大肠杆菌。coli O157：H7。将评价该方法可能的检测限、专属性和检测时间。预计该技术将提供<100个细胞/ml的检测限，<1小时的检测时间，以及对E. coli O 157：H7（<1%假阳性/阴性数据）。虽然最初的工作将集中在食品安全，类似的技术可以用于快速，现场筛查人类大肠杆菌。大肠杆菌感染。快速筛查人类感染也非常重要，因为危及生命的E。大肠杆菌的感染率正在上升，特别是在易受感染的人群中，如早产儿。初步数据表明，所提出的方法具有良好的潜力，显着提高国家的最先进的快速，灵敏，特异性检测大肠杆菌。大肠杆菌O 157：H7和其他生物病原体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Food safety remains a critical issue for human health in our society. The food system in our nation is vulnerable to contamination from natural pathogens and from bio-terrorist attack. Current detection methods are inadequate due to the time-consuming and laboratory-centered approaches presently in use. Instruments for rapid on-site detection of pathogens in food are urgently needed. The objective of this project is to evaluate an innovative capillary bioseparator / bioreactor-based optical biosensor technology for rapid detection of E. coli O157:H7. The detection limit, specificity and detection time possible with this approach will be evaluated. It is expected that the technology will provide <100 cells/ml detection limit, <1 h detection time, and high specificity to E. coli O157:H7 (<1% false positive/negative data). Although the initial work will focus on food safety, similar technology can be utilized for rapid, on-site screening of human E. coli infections. Rapid screening of human infections is also very important because life-threatening E. coli infections are increasing especially in susceptible groups such as premature babies. Preliminary data indicate that the proposed approach has good potential to significantly improve the state-of-the-art in rapid, sensitive, and specific detection of E. coli O157:H7 and eventually other biological pathogens.