SURFACE IMPRINTED POLYMERS TECHNOLOGY AND NANOPORE SEQUENCING FOR POINT OF CARE FOOD MICROBIAL ANALYSIS (SIPORE)

SIPORE aims at exploring and testing Surface Imprinted Polymers (SIP) biosensors in combination with a portable nanopore DNA sequencing system (MinION) for on-site microbial analysis in the agrifood industry. The two technologies, SIP and whole genome nanopore sequencing, hold great promise for fast, on-site detection and characterization of foodborne bacterial pathogens and for monitoring of starter culture strains.

In this study, SIP-chip coatings will be synthesized by (i) soft-lithographic stamping and (ii) electropolymerization for the selective detection of Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Enteritidis and Typhimurium, Lactobacillus plantarum and Bacillus cereus. In addition, the use of the portable whole genome nanopore sequencing system for strain characterization on subspecies level (Salmonella and L. monocytogenes) will be evaluated by benchmarking against Illumina sequencing. Finally, the potential of using SIP biosensors as initial screening and selection step for downstream nanopore sub-species typing will be assessed.