An official website of the United States government.
Develop nanotechnology for rapid detection of food pathogens. Specifically, new rapid methods for detecting food pathogens will be developed using high sensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors based on nanostructured substrates.
APPROACH: In order to enhance the sensitivity of SPR sensor, nanostructured Ag/Au films will be integrated in the sensing layer. The aligned Ag or Au nanorod arrays will be fabricated using oblique angle deposition method. For real-time pathogen detection, a flow cell will be developed by incorporating a linear or 2-D array CCD sensor. The protocol for specific pathogen sensitive procedure will be developed by optimizing the structure of nanorod arrays, antibody immobilization conditions, flow conditions, and sample collection procedures.