Detecting
Bacteria?
Researchers
have recently discovered a reliable method of detecting bacteria in fruits and
vegetables. By using an advanced assay platform, researchers believe they have
found the best method in detecting any pathogenic bacteria present. This assay
essentially “lights up” any pathogenic bacteria that’s present, which notifies
the workers of contaminated food. Of course, other factories are required to
use bacteria-detection assays for the food industry, but often their assays
don’t prove to be as reliable.
What
makes this method so unique is how the factory workers do it. They started this
process by injecting bacteriophages inside the food products. They take samples
of all the products. Then they swab those samples with a sponge, waiting for
the bacteriophages to target the bacteria. They run the sample through a
machine that is meant to detect any light that is emitted. They track all their
findings through the food company, looking and studying contamination patterns.
By
detecting the bacteria early on, factory workers can in fact control what food
goes to the markets and what doesn’t. This method is really important because
it ensures that the food in the market is fresh and free of pathogenic
bacteria. Most of us go to the market looking for the best, most fresh
vegetables and fruits. Bacteriophages play such a major role in this process
that it makes me wonder what else they can do. Their job is to infect bacteria,
so the question is, what other bacteria can they infect that would further help
us? Could we use bacteriophages in highly pathogenic areas to help clear some
of the bacteria? In this instance, a virus is proven to be helpful. It would be
interesting to know in what other ways viruses could be helpful with further research
and discovery.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/brighter-future-for-bacteria-detection.html
This is a very interesting article. It's cool that bacteriophages can be injected into these fruits to kick the bacteria out and keep it fresh. Which makes me wonder how this effects our health. I mean, I'm sure its okay but who really knows? Have there been tests on these kinds of things being injected into our fruits? It would be cool to see what exactly happens when these were injected into the fruits. It's still neat though that we can help keep up shelf life simply through a shot into our fruits. It's amazing what microbes can do even to help our fruits stay as fresh as they just came off of the vine, so you know it's going to be great when you bite into it.
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