Analyst Blog

TOMAS A. HIRSCHFELD AND FACSS STUDENT AWARDS – Deadline extended to May 15, 2012.

These awards recognize the most outstanding papers submitted to the conference by a graduate student. Recipients will receive economy travel to the meeting, complimentary registration, and complimentary hotel accommodations.  In order to be considered for designation as a Tomas A. Hirschfeld or FACSS Student Award, the student must submit a presentation for the SCIX 2012 conference, just as any other technical presentation is submitted.  The submission must be a bona fide paper to be presented at SCIX.  For consideration for this award the student must complete the submission form on the FACSS website and in addition submit the following:

• a 250 word abstract of the work to be reported.
• two letters of nomination, one by the student’s mentor.
• a copy of the candidates resumé.
• a copy of the candidate’s graduate transcript.
• copies of reprints and/or preprints of research accomplished.

Scientists in Korea have developed a biosensor for assessing food quality that mimics the way receptors in a canine nose respond to smells.

Tai Hyun Park and Seunghun Hong and colleagues from Seoul National University made a device that detects hexanal – a volatile compound produced when food is past its best.

A current method to detect compounds emitted by oxidised food is chromatography, but it isn’t portable and it involves a complicated pre-treatment process. To overcome these obstacles, scientists have moved on to semiconductor-based, olfactory cell-based and olfactory receptor protein-based sensors, but they are not as capable as an animal olfactory system in terms of selectivity and sensitivity.

In an animal’s nose, specific odorants bind to the corresponding olfactory receptors with high selectivity, generating a chemical signal. That signal is converted into an electrical signal and then amplified through a pathway in an olfactory sensory neuron (a nerve cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signalling).

The nanovesicles sit in the carbon nanotube channel. When hexanal is present, it binds to the olfactory receptors, causing an influx of Ca2+ ions into the vesicles. The resulting positive gate potential in the vesicles leads to a decrease in the conductance in the channel

Read the full article in Chemistry World

Link to journal article:

A bioelectronic sensor based on canine olfactory nanovesicle–carbon nanotube hybrid structures for the fast assessment of food quality
Juhun Park, Jong Hyun Lim, Hye Jun Jin, Seon Namgung, Sang Hun Lee, Tai Hyun Park and Seunghun Hong
Analyst, 2012, Advance Article
DOI:10.1039/C2AN16274A

The device, which is attached to a cell phone, detects E. coli and the phone's camera is used to capture light emission images © Ozcan Research Lab at UCLA

US scientists have developed a device that, when attached to a mobile phone, can detect small amounts of Escherichia coli in liquid samples.

Outbreaks of E. coli poisoning still pose a threat to health, particularly in developing countries. As few as ten E. coli bacteria can cause serious ill health, so accurate and efficient detection devices are required to identify contaminated food and water. Existing detection devices are often expensive, complex and require large equipment unsuitable for field use.

There are over five billion mobile phones in the world and over 70% of these are in developing areas. Hongying Zhu and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, developed a device able to take advantage of this abundant technology. Zhu commented that ‘our cell phone based platform would be very useful to bring advanced technologies to remote and resource poor locations’ adding that the phone provides ‘a ubiquitous platform for conducting advanced micro-analysis wherever cell phones work’.

Read the full story in Chemistry World

Link to journal article:

Quantum dot enabled detection of Escherichia coli using a cell-phone
Hongying Zhu, Uzair Sikora and Aydogan Ozcan
Analyst, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2AN35071H