A High-Performance Food Pathogen Detection Instrument

描述（由申请人提供）：在我们的社会中，食品安全仍然是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。由于目前使用的方法耗时且以实验室为中心，目前的检测方法是不充分的。迫切需要现场快速检测食品中病原体的仪器。本项目的目的是评估一种基于毛细管生物分离器/生物反应器的新型光学生物传感器技术，用于快速检测大肠杆菌O157:H7。将对该方法的检出限、特异性和可能的检出时间进行评估。预计该技术检测限<100个细胞/ml，检测时间<1 h，对大肠杆菌O157:H7具有高特异性（假阳性/阴性数据<1%）。虽然最初的工作将侧重于食品安全，但类似的技术可以用于快速现场筛查人类大肠杆菌感染。人类感染的快速筛查也非常重要，因为危及生命的大肠杆菌感染正在增加，特别是在早产儿等易感人群中。初步数据表明，该方法在快速、敏感和特异性检测大肠杆菌O157:H7和其他生物病原体方面具有良好的潜力。

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.