Developing next-generation portable rapid tests for food authenticity

The past few years have seen remarkable changes in diagnostic testing for infections, with home covid testing as lateral flow devices adopted enthusiastically into our homes. This shows how biological assays - such as immunoassays - for a range of diagnostic applications no longer need to be conducted in laboratories. Yet there are many other areas that are critical to public health and safety and industrial productivity where samples still get processed using traditional long winded laboratory methods. For example, the determination of the contamination of foodstuffs with pathogens, chemicals, toxins, allergens and/or adulterants throughout complicated supply chains has become a recurring issue. Although public interest has fallen since the horse meat scandal in 2013, food authenticity is increasingly a major concern for the food industry with enhanced media and social media attention not only damaging reputation and causing severe economic impacts in recalls, it can also pose significant risks to human health through the spread of infectious diseases and food allergens but also raise moral and ethical concerns for persons of certain faiths and beliefs. Examples include cross-contamination of other ingredients or food products with animal-based ingredients and deliberately altering or mislabelling the composition of a food for financial profit. The development of robust authentication and traceability systems implemented across the supply chain will help improve food safety and food fraud prevention. As such there is an increasing need to develop rapid innovative diagnostic tools that can detect multiple contaminants simultaneously in situ or at point of site testing. This is particularly important for animal-based and vegan foods which are often highly processed and include many different ingredients and additives. Adulteration of meat is described as "the fraudulent practice which involves substitution or mixing of flesh of cheaper variety which is objectionable for the reason of health, religion and economics". Meat speciation testing, the identification of animal species, is performed for these reasons. To date there is no rapid one method fits all approach commercially available for speciation testing of animal-based or vegan products; a range of approaches including ELISA, PCR and lateral flows are applied as a toolbox of tests.
Such food contamination can be detected using immunoassays that detect particular targets found in specific species. As observed during COVID a major advantage of immunoassays (over laboratory PCR or mass spectrometry) is portability and simplicity of use for the operator or analyst. Lateral flow immunoassay (LFA) devices are mass-manufactured keeping costs down, and easy to operate outside a lab, giving immediate results. One well-known limitation of lateral flow is analytical sensitivity: current lab tests can detect 100-1000 lower levels of a contaminant than standard LFA.
This project will apply the latest discoveries in biorecogniton element discovery using bioinformatics and immunoassay technology, such as smartphone detection and microfluidics, to develop a new generation of inexpensive, portable, multi-target, food security tests. This research project will apply recent developments and discoveries in the field of miniaturised immunoassay, to the problem of food authenticity. The student will balance two equally critical drivers of bioassay technology: exceptional analytical performance, yet they must remain cost-effective and manufacturable.
The aim of this proposal is to develop a simple effective diagnostic test for the simultaneous multiplex analysis of different animal species for example cow, sheep, porcine, turkey, chicken, equine, donkey and goat that can be used for field-based analysis.
The student will explore the feasibility of adapting current lateral flow immunoassays using several recent developments including, for example: improved fluidic configurations; smar