News & Events

Construction of the Next Generation Platforms to Monitor Food Contamination and Food Fraud

Date: 
Thursday, January 17, 2019 - 13:00 to 14:00
Speaker: 
Dr. Xiaonan Lu
Affiliation: 
Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia
Event Category: 
Associate Professor Candidate Seminar
Location: 
Chemistry D215

Abstract:

Microbiological and chemical contaminations of foods are critical international food safety problems. In the meanwhile, food fraud and adulteration have been emerging in the recent decades. As the principal investigator of Food Safety and Health Engineering Laboratory at University of British Columbia, Dr. Lu will introduce the newest rapid methods to monitor food contamination, food adulteration, and their traceability across the value chain. He will discuss different advanced techniques developed in his group for the detection of chemical and microbiological hazards in agri-food commodities, such as PCR-based and photonic-based microfluidic “lab-on-a-chip” platforms, hybrid multi-locus sequence typing with confocal micro-Raman spectroscopy, molecularly-imprinted polymers-based biosensors, and loop-mediated isothermal amplification conjugated with quantum dots and other optical-based nanoparticles. He will also discuss high throughput and portable instruments developed in his group, such as portable infrared and Raman spectrometers, for fingerprinting food contamination, fraud, and adulteration, which will ultimately speed food commodity testing and improve trade.

Keywords: food safety engineering, detection, food safety, food integrity, food adulteration