A research team at the University of Alberta is working toward keeping E. coli out of grocery stores.
The team ? staffed by researchers from the faculty of agriculture and life sciences, medicine and dentistry and computer science ? aimed to create a fast, accurate and cheap way to detect E. coli in meat-packing plants, as previous technologies have missed the pathogen in the past.
The result of this team?s research is precise and cheap to produce, said Linda Pilarski, a researcher from the U of A?s faculty of medicine and dentistry and one of the teams leaders.
The previous tests took time ? 24 hours or more ? to grow bacteria from a sample to determine the bacterial content of the batch.
?It?s proved to be a very valuable asset for the meat industry, but it is subject to a number of complicating factors that I think will not apply to the method we?ve developed,? she said.
The method being pioneered at the U of A looks at the presence of genes in a sample to determine the presence of pathogens, Pilarski explained, noting that the signifier genes (found in E. coli but not other bacteria) are much easier to detect in smaller amounts than the bacteria itself.
On a practical level, meatpacking plants can take a sample of liquid from a batch and place it on the technology?s ?cassette? component. The cassette, a little larger than a postage stamp, then copies the genetic content of the sample millions of times.
These one-use cassettes can be produced for as little as two dollars.
Next, this cassette is placed into a machine, roughly the size of a shoebox, which reads the information and the user gets the results of the test in under an hour.
The Alberta Innovates Centre for Machine Learning is working on an artificial intelligence to read the data and produce a clear statement of the meat?s safety, Pilarski explained.
She estimates that the machines will cost around $5,000.
Currently, the team hopes a company will license and commercialize the technology when it is entirely complete and, though it was designed specifically for testing meat, it can find application in medicine as well.
The entire project is 15 years in the making. The last five of these were funded by a grant by Alberta Innovate Health Solutions. Starting Aug. 1, the team will receive an 18-month grant worth $500,000 from Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions, Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency and Genome Alberta.
doug.johnson@sunmedia.ca
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