Transparent patch designed to detect pathogens like E. coli in packaged foods
TORONTO — Researchers at McMaster University have developed a transparent test patch for food packaging that detects the presence of potentially deadly bacteria like E. coli, with the aim of telling consumers and the grocery industry whether a product is safe to eat.
Dubbed “Sentinel Wrap,” the patch triggers a molecular signal that a disease-causing agent has contaminated products like meat, bottled water or milk.
“Right now, if you want to know if there’s any contamination in a food sample, you need to bring it into a lab … and it takes at least a day or two to find out if there’s any pathogen present in that food sample,” said mechanical-biomedical engineer Tohid Didar, one of the product’s developers.
“Our goal was to be able to find this at the site, either at home when you want to start using it or on the shelf when you’re buying it or for the supermarket manager who is handling this or even the person who transports it,” he said from Hamilton.