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