Developing next-generation portable rapid tests for food authenticity

开发下一代便携式食品真实性快速测试仪

• 批准号: 2886750
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Queen's University Belfast
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2886750
• 关键词: Developing; next; generation; portable; rapid

The past few years have seen remarkable changes in diagnostic testing for infections, with home covid testing as lateral flow devices adopted enthusiastically into our homes. This shows how biological assays - such as immunoassays - for a range of diagnostic applications no longer need to be conducted in laboratories. Yet there are many other areas that are critical to public health and safety and industrial productivity where samples still get processed using traditional long winded laboratory methods. For example, the determination of the contamination of foodstuffs with pathogens, chemicals, toxins, allergens and/or adulterants throughout complicated supply chains has become a recurring issue. Although public interest has fallen since the horse meat scandal in 2013, food authenticity is increasingly a major concern for the food industry with enhanced media and social media attention not only damaging reputation and causing severe economic impacts in recalls, it can also pose significant risks to human health through the spread of infectious diseases and food allergens but also raise moral and ethical concerns for persons of certain faiths and beliefs. Examples include cross-contamination of other ingredients or food products with animal-based ingredients and deliberately altering or mislabelling the composition of a food for financial profit. The development of robust authentication and traceability systems implemented across the supply chain will help improve food safety and food fraud prevention. As such there is an increasing need to develop rapid innovative diagnostic tools that can detect multiple contaminants simultaneously in situ or at point of site testing. This is particularly important for animal-based and vegan foods which are often highly processed and include many different ingredients and additives. Adulteration of meat is described as "the fraudulent practice which involves substitution or mixing of flesh of cheaper variety which is objectionable for the reason of health, religion and economics". Meat speciation testing, the identification of animal species, is performed for these reasons. To date there is no rapid one method fits all approach commercially available for speciation testing of animal-based or vegan products; a range of approaches including ELISA, PCR and lateral flows are applied as a toolbox of tests.Such food contamination can be detected using immunoassays that detect particular targets found in specific species. As observed during COVID a major advantage of immunoassays (over laboratory PCR or mass spectrometry) is portability and simplicity of use for the operator or analyst. Lateral flow immunoassay (LFA) devices are mass-manufactured keeping costs down, and easy to operate outside a lab, giving immediate results. One well-known limitation of lateral flow is analytical sensitivity: current lab tests can detect 100-1000 lower levels of a contaminant than standard LFA.This project will apply the latest discoveries in biorecogniton element discovery using bioinformatics and immunoassay technology, such as smartphone detection and microfluidics, to develop a new generation of inexpensive, portable, multi-target, food security tests. This research project will apply recent developments and discoveries in the field of miniaturised immunoassay, to the problem of food authenticity. The student will balance two equally critical drivers of bioassay technology: exceptional analytical performance, yet they must remain cost-effective and manufacturable.The aim of this proposal is to develop a simple effective diagnostic test for the simultaneous multiplex analysis of different animal species for example cow, sheep, porcine, turkey, chicken, equine, donkey and goat that can be used for field-based analysis.The student will explore the feasibility of adapting current lateral flow immunoassays using several recent developments including, for example: improved fluidic configurations; smar

在过去的几年里，感染诊断检测发生了显著的变化，家庭新冠病毒检测作为侧流设备被热情地采用到我们的家中。这表明，用于一系列诊断应用的生物测定（如免疫测定）不再需要在实验室中进行。然而，还有许多其他领域对公共健康和安全以及工业生产力至关重要，在这些领域，样品仍然使用传统的冗长的实验室方法进行处理。例如，在整个复杂的供应链中确定食品受到病原体、化学品、毒素、过敏原和/或掺杂物的污染已成为一个反复出现的问题。尽管自2013年马肉丑闻以来，公众的兴趣有所下降，但食品真实性越来越成为食品行业的一个主要问题，媒体和社交媒体的关注度提高，不仅损害了声誉，还造成了召回的严重经济影响，它还可能通过传播传染病和食物过敏原对人类健康构成重大风险，但也会引起某些人的道德和伦理问题信仰和信念。例子包括其他配料或食品与动物性配料交叉污染，以及故意改变或错误标示食品的成分以谋取经济利益。在整个供应链中实施强大的认证和可追溯性系统将有助于改善食品安全和预防食品欺诈。因此，越来越需要开发快速创新的诊断工具，其可以在原位或现场测试点同时检测多种污染物。这对于动物性和纯素食品尤其重要，这些食品通常经过高度加工，包含许多不同的成分和添加剂。肉类掺假被描述为“涉及替代或混合较便宜品种的肉类的欺诈行为，这是出于健康、宗教和经济原因而令人反感的”。肉类物种鉴定测试，动物物种的识别，是出于这些原因。迄今为止，还没有一种快速的方法适用于所有商业上可用的动物性或纯素产品的形态检测方法;一系列方法，包括ELISA，PCR和侧流作为一个工具箱的测试应用。这种食品污染可以使用免疫测定检测特定物种中发现的特定靶标来检测。如在COVID期间所观察到的，免疫测定（相对于实验室PCR或质谱法）的主要优点是操作者或分析员使用的便携性和简单性。侧流免疫测定（LFA）设备是大规模生产的，成本低，易于在实验室外操作，并立即产生结果。众所周知，侧向流的局限性在于分析灵敏度：目前的实验室检测方法只能检测出比标准LFA低100-1000个水平的污染物。本项目将利用智能手机检测和微流控等生物信息学和免疫分析技术，开发新一代廉价、便携、多目标的食品安全检测方法。该研究项目将应用免疫分析领域的最新发展和发现来解决食品真实性问题。学生将平衡生物测定技术的两个同样重要的驱动因素：本发明的目的是开发一种简单有效的诊断测试，用于同时对不同动物物种进行多重分析，例如牛、羊、猪、火鸡、鸡、马，驴和山羊，可用于现场为基础的分析。学生将探讨适应目前的横向流动免疫分析的可行性，使用几个最新的发展，包括，例如：改进的流体配置; smar