Contaminated food detector development in Scotland
A group of Scottish scientists have received funding to mass-produce a food testing kit that will detect the presence of potentially fatal contaminants within hours.
By 2010 the project, based at The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, and costing £246,000 (€330,395), will roll out technology designed to cut detection times for food poisoning bugs such as Campylobacter, Listeria and Salmonella from six days to five hours.
According to the institute's Dr Brajesh Singh, who leads the project, the new technology could prevent thousands of deaths every year from food poisoning outbreaks.
"The conventional methods for detecting food contamination used by industries and regulatory agencies are labour intensive, time consuming and costly. Our proposed technology offers for the first time, at low cost, the simultaneous detection of multiple contaminants within five to eight hours, and has the potential to revolutionise the food safety industry and save lives through prevention of food poisoning epidemics.
Singh also believes this technology could help to position Scotland as a world-leader in microbial diagnostics and industrial microbiology.
"The project will allow Scotland to compete with North America and Continental Europe in this growing market, which estimates suggest will be worth US$2.4bn €1.63bn) by 2010 for the food sector alone."
While the technology will initially focus on contaminant detection in food and the environment, it has wider applications and will be attractive to healthcare, forensic and remediation industries.
There is also the potential for this technology to be used in the future to quickly detect hospital super bugs such as MRSA, said Singh.
He added: "By proving the concept within two years, the project will achieve a technology that can be licensed to a range of industries or service providers in microbial diagnostics. It will also be marketed through a spin-out company, which will manufacture the necessary kits and create a service centre for the UK, leading to new job opportunities in Scotland. These jobs will be in foo, environmental and clinical industries."
The test kit works by analysing a food sample for specific food pathogens. It will detect multiple microbial contaminants in food, water and environmental samples. This unique method allows dual detection of pathogens and determines if they are capable of producing toxins or whether they have antibiotic resistance. It offers improved diagnostic potential to identify the source of contamination.
Singh said: "Once proven the technology will reduce running costs and allow more frequent and comprehensive surveillance of food safety, improving public health protection and food quality management systems."
The project also involves Dr Colin Campbell and Dr Fiona Moore of the Macaulay Institute, and Mr Iain Ogden from the University of Aberdeen. It is funded by Scottish Enterprise's Proof of Concept programme.