High-performance Food Pathogen Detection Instrument

描述（由申请人提供）：该第二阶段项目的主要目标是开发一种创新的台式仪器，用于食品加工设施的现场使用，具有高性能，易于使用和低样品成本，用于快速，特异性和灵敏度检测即食（RTE）食品中的多种病原体，包括大肠杆菌O 157：H7，单核细胞增生李斯特菌和鼠伤寒沙门氏菌，如加工肉类和家禽产品以及新鲜水果和蔬菜。我们提出的技术提供了在不到一小时内将致病菌定量到低于10个细胞/mL的能力，假阳性或假阴性最少。所提出的仪器是完全集成的，包括一个包含多个基于毛细管柱的生物分离器/生物反应器（用于病原体捕获）的盒，以及一个液芯波导（LCW）光学检测器（用于病原体检测）。它不需要在生长培养基中预富集靶细菌，并且测定的所有步骤将需要最低限度的操作员技能。由致病菌引起的食品微生物污染是我们社会关注的主要问题。据估计，受污染的食品每年在美国造成7600万人患病，325，000人因严重疾病住院，5，000人死亡。食源性疾病的经济影响估计每年高达100亿美元。公共利益科学中心报告说，水果和蔬菜是美国食源性疾病确诊病例的罪魁祸首。特别令人关切的是进口农产品中存在病原体。由于这些病原体在新鲜农产品上的持久性，FDA和USDA都支持开发标准化方法的研究，以确定拟议的消毒剂策略在新鲜农产品上灭活这些病原体的有效性。热杀菌步骤对这类食品是不可行的。在美国食品安全计划中，一个明显的伴随需求是一种快速、简单的方法，例如本文提出的方法，以确定在消毒步骤实施后持续存在的病原体的数量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary objective of this Phase II project is to develop an innovative benchtop instrument for use on-site at food processing facilities with high performance, ease-of-use, and a low per sample cost for rapid, specific, and sensitive detection of multiple pathogens including Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella Typhimurium in ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, such as processed meat and poultry products and fresh fruits and vegetables. Our proposed technique provides the ability to quantify pathogenic bacteria down to less than 10 cells/mL in less than one hour with a minimum of false positives or negatives. The proposed instrument is fully integrated and includes a cartridge containing multiple capillary column-based bioseparator/bioreactors (for pathogen capture), and a liquid core waveguide (LCW) optical detector (for pathogen detection). It will not require pre-enrichment of target bacteria in growth medium and all steps of the assay will require minimal operator skill. Microbial contamination of food products by pathogenic bacteria is a major concern of our society. Contaminated food is estimated to cause 76 million illnesses, 325,000 serious illnesses resulting in hospitalization, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. The economic impact of foodborne illness has been estimated as high as $10 billion annually. The Center for Science in the Public Interest reported that fruits and vegetables are the leading culprits in confirmed cases of foodborne illness in the United States. Of particular concern is the presence of pathogens in imported produce. Because of the persistence of these pathogens on fresh produce, both FDA and USDA have supported research on developing standardized methods to determine the efficacy of proposed sanitizer strategies for inactivating these pathogens on fresh produce. A heat kill step is not feasible for such foods. An obvious companion need in the U.S. food safety program is a rapid, simple method, such as is proposed here, to determine the number of pathogens that persist after the sanitizing step has been administered.