A HANDHELD sensor that can quickly spot contamination by deadly strains of the Escherichia coli bug could help prevent infected food reaching consumers.
In the US alone, 60 people a year die from E. coli, while 73,000 are infected with pathogenic strains. But detecting the bug is a slow process that involves removing whole batches of foodstuffs from production lines while cultures are grown or DNA amplified. Tests can take 24 hours or more, says Peter Wareing, a food safety expert with Leatherhead Food International in Surrey, UK.
Now Raj Mutharasan, an engineer at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,…
