Food safety is a national priority that affects every
man, woman and child. As many as 76 million Americans become ill annually due to
foodborne pathogens and toxins. Estimates indicate that as many as 5,200 of
these individuals will die, with an additional 325,000 being hospitalized as a
result of this exposure.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates the cost of
foodborne illness to be up to $30 billion in direct medical expenses, lost
productivity, health expenses annually. Of that amount, Salmonella and
Campylobacter account for $1 billion in direct and indirect medical
expenses. In addition to these costs to the public and the nation, the costs to
industry of settling civil litigation due to foodborne disease can be immense.
For example, the 1993 Jack-in-the-Box hamburger incident involving beef
contaminated by E.coli 0157:H7 infected more than 600 individuals (mostly
children), killed four children and resulted in lawsuit settlements of $126
million.
To address the needs of our state and
nation, Auburn University
commissioned the Auburn University Detection and Food Safety Center in October
1999, and designated it as a University Peak of Excellence. With this identification came
funding from the State of Alabama to initiate a systems engineering approach to
identifying and performing the research needed to improve food
safety.
At the core of the Auburn University
Detection and Food Safety Center are researchers from five Auburn University
colleges: Agriculture, Engineering, Human Sciences, Sciences and Mathematics,
and Veterinary Medicine. Our core researchers, along with the help of
colleagues, staff and students from these and other disciplines, work together
to address the need for next-generation sensors and information systems for the
detection of food contamination, and rapid inventory and traceability of food
products. To accomplish this, AUDFS is combining advances in the identification
of foodborne illnesses and contaminants with the latest in biosensor technology.
These efforts will ultimately lead to a system that monitors food products from
production to consumption, thereby eliminating or reducing significantly the
threat of foodborne bacteria, pathogens and toxins (i.e. Salmonella,
E. coli, “mad-cow disease,et cetera) reaching our dinner tables and
restaurants.
Center research is funded through several
funding streams, including special university funding through the Peaks of
Excellence program, federal agencies (including USDA, FDA and NSF), and
food-related industries in the form of sponsored projects and industrial participation.
The AUDFS
Vision
The Detection and Food Safety Center will
yield fundamental scientific advances in the methods of bacterial-chemical
sensing, information technologies and integration of biological and electrical
functions on a single chip. Results of these fundamental studies will be
combined with engineering studies to yield enabling technology, such as handheld
bacteria detectors, sampling methodologies and RFID sensor tags.
A range of industrial products are
envisioned, beginning with bulk-food shipment monitor for automatic inventory,
temperature and time measurement; improved systems for inventory-traceability
(RFID tags); port-of-entry food inspection monitors; food processing monitors;
and a continuum of inventory, temperature, bacterial sensor tags for bulk to
individual packages.
With a cost of five to 10 cents,
stamp-sized sensor tags (STags) can be placed on appropriate fresh-food
products. With a target sensitivity of tens of cells, the sensors would transmit
a host of information by non-line-of-sight radio frequency. For consumer safety,
these sensors would measure temperature, bacteria count, and other chemical and
environmental changes. For the food industry, these sensors would provide the
same information, in addition to traceability features such as origin, date and
time of processing, shipment information and a range of other rogrammable
features. Our RFID STags would be found molded into the sides of plastic
bottles, attached to the inside cap of glass bottles, molded into Styrofoam
meat-trays and attached to plastic wraps.
Fulfilling the AUDFS vision will produce
deliverables, such as:
|
Technology to instantaneously
evaluate food safety at ort-of-entryinspection
stations |
| Technology to ascertain the
presence of ruminant meat-and-bone-meal (MBM) in agricultural feed, thereby
preventing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) from infiltrating the
food-supply chain |
| Technology to monitor food
processing lines and warn of possible contamination, thereby allowing processing
parameters to be corrected |
| Technology to automatically
inventory and instantaneously identify, warn and trace to the source potential
problems (i.e., improper storage temperature occurring during distribution and
shipment) |
| A new generation of
engineers/scientists educated in systems-driven, team-based problem-solving with
depth from both specific knowledge and traditional disciplines of engineering
and biology, and capable of addressing and resolving complex issues in the food
industry |
Top
Personnel
AUDFS vision and goals align with Auburn
University strengths. As a land-grant institution, the university has a
special mission to improve the lives of residents of our state and country, and
because so, food safety is of paramount interest to our mission. Auburn
University traditional strengths lie in agriculture and engineering, and it
has long-standing, close contacts with the food industry and its suppliers. The
expertise among the Auburn University research family, coupled with strategic
research partnerships with universities throughout the U.S., gives AUDFS the
ability to affect food safety on a national, not to mention, global,
perspective.
Our core research team, currently composed
of 13 core investigators, guides the research and operational direction of our
center. This team is currently under the leadership of Dr. Bryan A. Chin, center director, and Dr. James M. Barbaree, associate director. Details of
each research team member education,
professional history and other relevant experience are also
available.
