Researchers at Purdue University, have published in Nature, a new technology for detection of toxins and food-borne pathogens. The research group claims the technology is able to detect several pathogens in thousands of food and water samples in a couple of hours. Interestingly, it can also estimate the number of microbes present in a sample and determine whether that amount poses an active health hazard.

The technology uses live mammalian cells, B-cell hybridoma, PED-2E9, in a type I collagen matrix, that release a chemical, alkaline phosphatase, when harmed. This chemical can be detected uses optical equipment, such as laser scanning cytometry or cryo-nano scanning electron microscopy. The group developed software which can then analyze the signal and determine the quantity of harmful microbes present. Since the bio-sensor uses live cells it only detects actively harmful pathogens and ignores those that are inactive and harmless. Most test on the market currently detect dead or alive microbes and are prone to high false alarm rates or use a lengthy incubation periods, up to 20 hours or more, to grow only living microbes for detection.

This is an interesting application for live cells but is not novel. BAE systems has had this algae detector on the market for some time now. Even with this being said, the food market is lacking a fast, relatively speaking, detection method for Listeria monocytogenes. We at Biotech Mashup will follow this group to see if they are able to spin this out of the laboratory.