Detection of antibiotic residues in milk is an on-going concern. Regulatory agencies such as the FDA, Teagasc and the department of agriculture enforce strict measures to certify that the concentration of antibiotics in the sample is below a specified level. Such control is a necessity for consumer protection and to limit the extent of the antibiotic resistance crisis. Expensive HPLC & LC-MS methods are used to detect antibiotic residues at the processing plant after the milk is delivered from the producer farm. If antibiotic residues are detected in the sample, the whole tank of milk is discarded and the producer farms are fined by regulatory bodies. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the producer farm to obtain a reliable and cheap test to screen for antibiotic residues in the cow’s milk. Our project therefore aims to develop a cheap, easy to use and highly sensitive biosensor diagnostic test to both qualify and quantify antibiotic residues in milk in the farmyard setting.
By extension, our team aims to further employ this technology in tackling the issue of methanol contamination of alcohol, which is common in resource-poor breweries and distilleries worldwide. In recent years, there has been a large increase in the number of public deaths from methanol poisoning in countries such as Libya, Uganda, India and even in the Czech Republic and Norway. The number of victims ranged from between 20 to 800 people with case fatality rates reaching almost 30%. This shows that there is a growing pressure to create affordable, easy to use and reliable methanol analytical tests such as our biosensor.
