An interdisciplinary team of scientists who are inventing new ways to protect our food supply from potentially deadly food pathogens has garnered the 2006 Purdue Agriculture Team Award.

The Biosensor Detection Team's research focuses on rapidly determining whether such microbes as Listeria monocytogenes or E. coli exist in food, particularly meat and milk products.

The technologies the team has developed include a biochip about the size of a fingernail that analyzes very small amounts of food and does it faster and less expensively than current methods.

The researchers also have found a way to take large samples of foods and concentrate the microorganisms into small volumes to inject onto the chip.

"The technologies that the Biosensor Detection Team has developed are a major step in protecting food throughout the supply system from accidental or purposeful contamination by potentially deadly pathogens," says Randy Woodson, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture.

The diagnostic method that includes the biosensor and the cell concentration technology has decreased detection time from two or three days to a few hours. The research provides a first important step toward a prototype integrated system for testing in industry.

"We could not have achieved the same results if just one research specialty had been involved," says Arun Bhunia, a microbiologist in the Department of Food Science. "The interdisciplinary work not only has enabled us to produce these new technologies, but it also has helped us better teach and train undergraduate and graduate students in biology, microbiology and engineering."

Approximately 76 million cases of foodborne illness occur annually in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This results in 5,500 deaths and 325,000 people being hospitalized.

The USDA Agricultural Research Service has funded the work through a cooperative agreement with the Purdue Center for Food Safety Engineering.

Faculty members of the team are food science professors Bhunia and Richard Linton and associate professors Bruce Applegate and Mark Morgan; agricultural and biological engineering distinguished professor Michael Ladisch and assistant professor Nate Mosier; Rashid Bashir, professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering; J. Paul Robinson, professor of biomedical engineering and biology; and Dan Hirleman, William E. and Florence E. Perry Head and Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Other members of the team are Padmapriya Banada, food science postdoctoral research scientist; Debra Sherman, manager, horticulture department life sciences microscopy facility; Shu-I Tu, supervisory research chemist, USDA Agricultural Research Service; and laboratory technicians Kiya Smith from food science, David Taylor from chemical engineering, Jennifer Sturgis from veterinary medicine's Department of Basic Medical Sciences, and Xingya Liu from the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering.

Other team members from that laboratory are Miraslav Sedlak, senior research scientist; bioprocess research engineer Tom Huang, also of the Department of Chemical Engineering; and Linda Liu, laboratory supervisor.