Microfluidics-Based Analysis in Agro-Food Safety

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As a leading service provider in the field of microfluidics, Creative Biolabs possesses enriched experience in microfluidic chip and microfluidics-based analysis method development. For recent years, scientists from Creative Biolabs are devoted to offering one-stop microfluidic solutions for global customers. Particularly, we are happy to help our clients develop microfluidics-based analysis method for food safety.

Why Need New Analysis Method for Food Safety?

Food safety has become a global topic as chemical (pesticide residues, heavy metals, and illegal additives) and biological contaminations (foodborne pathogens such as Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, Sonne dysentery bacillus, E. coli and Salmonella typhimurium) occur frequently. Therefore, food safety analysis and testing are an important means to control food contamination and solve food safety problems. Traditionally, the detection technology is generally based on the instrumental analysis. Though accurate and reliable, the instrumental analysis also has some limitations, including expensive instruments, long cycle, large material consumption, complicated operation, and low sensitivity. Under this condition, it is urgent to develop a new analysis method to meet the needs of the on-site, real-time, rapid, and portable detection of food.

Fig.1 Emerging paper-based point-of-care (POC) devices for food safety analysis. (Choi, 2019)

Microfluidics-Based Analysis in Food Safety

In recent years, microfluidic chip technology has become a hot topic as it integrates the process of sample pretreatment, separation and detection into a chip of a few square centimeters, thus realizing the miniaturization, automation, integration, and portability of sample pretreatment and follow-up analysis. With the advantages of less sample consumption, fast detection, simple operation, multi-functional integration, small size, and portability, it has been widely used in the detection of pesticide residue, pathogenic bacteria, heavy metal, and food additives. For example, a paper-based microfluidic device was developed for simultaneous detection of Hg²⁺, Ag⁺, and residual aminoglycoside antibiotics in food. Segmented continuous-flow multiplex PCR (SCF-MPCR) performed on a spiral-channel microfluidic device enables the fast, high-throughput detection of foodborne pathogens from bananas, milk, and sausages without cross-contamination. Moreover, nanomaterial-, thread-, cuvette-, tube-, disc-, glass slide- and well plate-based devices have also been developed for food safety analysis.

Advantages of Microfluidics-Based Analysis in Food Safety

Rapid and low-cost detection of pesticide residues
High detection sensitivity with short cycle
Less sample consumption, simple operation, small size and portability
Multiple contaminations monitored simultaneously

As a new technology, microfluidics-based analysis can concentrate multiple steps of sample detection on a small chip, integrate these operations through the size and curvature of the flow channel, micro-valves, cavity design, and ultimately make the whole detection integration miniaturization and automation. With years of extensive experience in this field, Creative Biolabs is dedicated to offering high-quality microfluidics chip development services for food safety monitoring. Our skillful scientists are confident to tailor first-class, custom-oriented services to address every specific requirement. If you are interested in the service we provide, please feel free to contact us or directly send us a quote.

Reference

Choi, et al. Emerging Point-of-care Technologies for Food Safety Analysis. Sensors. 2019, 19(4), p.817.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.