BIOFOS: micro-ring resonator-based biophotonic system for food analysis. Nut mycotoxin detection

BIOFOS aims to further develop and validate a reusable and high-added value Lab-on-Chip (LoC) based, micro-biophotonic sensor platform for in situ monitoring of food contaminants. The Lab-on-Chip was tested on milk (aflatoxin M1, antibiotics and lactose), olive oil (pesticides and metals), nuts (aflatoxin B1) and dehydrated fruits (ochratoxin A). BIOFOS combines the most promising concepts from the photonic, biological, nanochemical and fluidic parts of Lab-on-Chip systems, aiming to achieve low sensitivity and high specificity, excellent reliability and compactness. Current methodologies for detection of food contamination based on heavy analytical tools cannot guarantee a safe and stable food supply. The reasons are the complexity, the long time-to-result (2-3 days) and the cost of these tools, which limit the number of samples that can be practically analyzed at food processing and storage sites. Preliminary results for almonds spiked with aflatoxin B1 are presented. First results suggest that BIOFOS has sensitivity enough for AFB1, even that the concentration is at ppb level. More data are still required, and many analyses are ongoing in the laboratory. Results are not enough to conclude about any characteristics of the device performance, even then repeatability seems very good (variation less than 3% at 25 ppb) and recovery is acceptable (78.4%), while decision limit and detection capability are still uncertain.