Each year, over 48 million people fall sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die due to food related illnesses in the U.S. alone. Unfortunately, existing technologies for pathogen detection in food and water are too slow and inefficient taking days to conclude, and requiring either intense labor in a dedicated laboratory or expensive capital equipment. We propose to develop a sensitive, rapid and simple diagnostic platform for the multiplex detection and quantitation of foodborne bacterial pathogens, as well as waterborne viruses and parasites. Our platform involves a single disposable cartridge in which all steps of the assay can be run without any user intervention. In this Phase I project, we will begin to develop and optimize assays for prototypical organisms, with a goal to demonstrate under 1-hour assays for quantitation and under 8-hour (single shift) assays for detection (at the single organism level) of foodborne pathogens. This would allow, for the first time, a near real-time, single-shift, monitoring of bacterial contamination in packaged food facilities saving days of shelf life on perishable foods, and saving lives by helping to more effectively monitor the food and water supply chain.
