Ainia delves into the prevention of food allergy through biosensors

Today, manufacturers of food products are required to report on their labels on the allergies that could lead to your product. This measure is necessary, but insufficient, given that many allergens are not known. Faced with this situation, the establishment of more effective and rapid measurement methods is necessary. An investigation carried out by the Institute of Food Safety and group Physical Chemistry and Colloid Sciences of Wageningen University (United Kingdom) has developed a test that detects the allergens through a biosensor. This new technique can simultaneously detect up twelve allergens present in foods, in relevant quantities.

Thanks to the biosensor in about 10 minutes you can get a quantitative picture of the presence of allergens in a product. The obtained information allows to quickly make decisions that affect their quality and safety. The study has been carried out with certain types of foods that are more likely to cause food allergies such as nuts, milk, eggs and soybeans. In this sense, Ainia coordinates the European project 'biolisme', whose main objective is to develop a biosensor capable of detecting the bacteria Listeria Monocytogenes in food industry in a reliable, quick and economic way. This bacterium is the cause of the most virulent food infections and is found in meat and dairy products.

Food allergies are an emerging disease that affects more consumers every day. For this reason, Ainia redoubles its efforts to develop effective methods for the detection of allergens, from the departments of Microbiology and instrumentation and automatic.