SBIR-STTR Award

Scombrotoxin poisoning is a leading foodborne illness caused by the consumption of spoiled fish and fishery products containing high concentrations of histamine. Histamine is therefore an indicator of freshness and microbiological quality of many perishable foods. Despite significant advancements in detection tools improved consumer education on food safety and increasing regulatory pressure histamine testing in the food industry has been curtailed by the high testing costs long detection times and limited portability of existing commercial technologies. The goal of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) proposal is to develop a rapid point-of-use and low-cost electrochemical sensor for detecting histamine in fish and fishery products. We will establish the feasibility of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) to sense histamine at regulatory-prescribed concentrations (50 parts-per-million) within 180 seconds in foods. MIPs provide a means of selecting specific molecules from complex samples by size shape and electrostatic properties serving as recognition elements akin to synthetic antibodies. To meet these project goals we will optimize fabrication approaches for making biomimetic sensors with tunable and controllable sensing characteristics and test the sensors against a diverse array of fish and fishery products to confirm their efficacies as histamine detectors. The outcome of this work will address long-standing analytical challenges in achieving rapid cost-effective and portable methods for direct detection of histamine in fish and fishery products with the same or superior precision as conventional laboratory technologies. This device would greatly benefit the food industry and consumers by increasing supply chain transparency and food quality and safety.