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Smartphone analyzers for on-site testing of food quality and safety

The FoodSmartphone project in a nutshell Imagine how many random and suspect samples are being taken in national monitoring plans within the European Union (EU) for food quality and safety testing: millions each year again and again. Typically, all these samples are taken on-site at farms, slaughterhouses, border inspection points, retail shops, etc., documented, transported to a control laboratory, screened for target substances such as food contaminants and drug residues, and finally the few suspects from the screening methods have to be confirmed by validated instrumental methods in order to declare the sample non-compliant or compliant. Despite all these efforts, we are still facing frequent food incidents and fraud issues. A paradigm shift in food quality and safety testing is required in order to free resources for an intensified combat against fraud in the food chain. As an enabling technology solution to the problem, FoodSmartphone proposes the development of smartphone-based (bio)analytical sensing and diagnostic tools, for simplified on-site pre-screening of quality and safety parameters and wireless data transfer to servers of relevant stakeholders. Bioanalytical chemists, biologists, physicists, micro/nanotech engineers, mathematicians, organic- and food chemists will work together on the joint supra-disciplinary goal. FoodSmartphone offers the 11 ESRs an extensive programme of network-wide training events and intersectoral secondments. The scientific training in novel smartphone-based technologies plus the complementary skills training provided, will have a major impact on future EU monitoring practices and, moreover, pave the road for Citizen Science.

Overall objectives of FoodSmartphone:

To study the supra-disciplinary challenge of smartphone-based analysis systems having advanced biorecognition, signal transduction, microfluidic sample handling and image data handling solutions.
To develop user-friendly, rapid integrated sample preparation and smartphone-compatible Apps, to ultimately ensure adequate field implementation for both professionals and future Citizen Science.
To develop a unique range of smartphone-based on-site screening demonstrators for food quality and safety issues of concern, viz. for pesticides, allergens, mycotoxins, food spoilage organisms and marine toxins.
To deliver, through high level training, a group of multidisciplinary scientists who can integrate (bio)analytical chemistry, physics, micro-engineering and ICT knowledge into a common supra-disciplinary goal, to combat major socio-economic challenges, such as maintaining a healthy, safe and fair food supply.
To substantially improve the career prospects of early-stage researchers across academia, public research institutes and private industry sectors, including SMEs.
The project started with a 6 months recruitment period followed by the first network-wide summer school; the actual R&D program of FoodSmartphone starts about now. The project is organized in a matrix structure of 11 individual ESR projects (see below) and 5 cross-cutting work packages.

Key facts:

Grant Agreement: 720325 – FoodSmartphone - H2020-MSCA-ITN Start date: January 2017 Duration: 48 months Volume: 2.8 M€ Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Michel Nielen RIKILT Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands