SBIR-STTR Award

Current methods for detection of microbial contaminants on surfaces use swabbing/wiping to extract microbes for analysis. This removes easily transferable microbes but fails to extract microbes living in biofilms which reduces sensitivity and may mask the true degree of contamination. The proposed project will develop BioXpose an innovative product for increased extraction of microbes from biofilms for detecting contamination on food processing surfaces. The project will consist of three objectives. In objective 1 a set of thirteen enzymes in binary pairs will be tested against in vitro biofilms of eight bacteria representing major food borne pathogens and model resident species of food industry surfaces. For Objective 2 multi-species (MS) in vitrobiofilms on plastic and stainless steel surfaces will be developed as more realistic representations of actual contaminated food processing surfaces. The measure for assessing the quality of different species combinations will be increased resistance to disinfectant treatment ensuring the final MSbiofilms will be more robust than single-species biofilms and a stronger challenge for enzyme cocktails. In Objective 3 the top binary enzyme pairs will be tested against the two MS biofilmmodels and a set of 25 3-enzyme combinations will be tested using these systems. The final enzyme combination will be tested using a commercial contamination assay to gauge the improvement in performance. With the successful development of BioXpose food industry contamination monitoring systems including BioXpose will achieve improved sensitivity accuracy and reliability which will provide better protection from food-borne illnesses and reduce product recalls.

Current methods for detection of microbial contaminants on food industry surfaces use simples wabbing/wiping to extract microbes for analysis. This removes easily transferable microbes but fails to extract microbes living in biofilms which reduces detection sensitivity and may mask the true degree of contamination. This increases the risk of food-borne outbreaks threatening human health and can result in costly recalls for food providers. The proposed project will develop BioXpose an innovative product that will increase the extraction of viable microbes from biofilms on surfaces to achieve improved detection of contamination on food processing surfaces. The Phase I results provided several candidate enzyme cocktails (ECs) with high activity against a multi-species biofilm model. The Phase II project further develop the top ECs to reach a market-ready product BioXpose and will consist of three objectives. In Technical Objective 1refinements to the biofilm assay and bacterial release assay will be instituted and top ECs will be more comprehensively tested. For Technical Objective 2 lead ECs will be converted into product ready formulations that achieves the microbe release performance desired in the final product. In Technical Objective 3 the top EC will be tested against a more advanced multi-species biofilm using 2 downstream detection assays to compare BioXpose-treated vs controls by an independent contract lab. With the successful development of BioXpose food industry surface contamination monitoring will achieve improved sensitivity accuracy and reliability through the use of BioXpose which will provide better protection from food-borne illnesses and reduce product recalls.