Development of a Rapid Point of Care test for Food & Water Safety

The project involves the development of a rapid detection test kit that will enable food processors to measure the absence or presence of potentially harmful pathogenic organisms prior to shipment to the general trade. The interns’ main objectives will be to dramatically reduce the assessment time for the tester- currently ranging from 4 to 5 days- to an elapsed time of minutes. The kit will benefit the food processor to reduce microbial risk and potential cost from a recall, while the consumer will have safer foods. On the other hand, the industrial partner will possess this unique technology, which completes the entire process of safe foods production, that being pre-operative sanitation, in process food safety interventions and lastly the validation of food security through the test kit protocols.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Michael Rieder

Student:

Yadira Tejeda Saldaña, Abdelbaset Elzagallaai & Kemi Adeyanju

Partner:

Adept Diagnostics

Discipline:

Medicine

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Western University