Wednesday 12 March 2014

New rapid method to detect Salmonella

A novel biosensor developed by scientists at Rice University in collaboration with colleagues in Thailand and Ireland may make the detection of pathogens much faster and easier for food-manufacturing plants.

The method consists of an array of tiny ‘diving boards’ that can identify many strains of Salmonella at once.
The "diving boards" are a set of microcantilevers, each of which can be decorated with different peptides that have unique binding affinities to strains of the salmonella bacteria. When a peptide catches a bacterium, the cantilever bends ever so slightly, due to a mismatch in surface stress on the top and bottom. A fine laser trained on the mechanism catches that motion and triggers the alarm. The system is sensitive enough to warn of the presence of a single pathogen.

For further details, see the following paper:

Jinghui Wang, M. Josephine Morton, Christopher T. Elliott, Nitsara Karoonuthaisiri, Laura Segatori, Sibani Lisa Biswal. Rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria and screening of phage-derived peptides using microcantilevers. Analytical Chemistry, 2014; : 140113115511000 DOI: 10.1021/ac403437x Posted by Tim Sandle

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