Speaker: Professor Xudong Cao, Ottawa-Carleton Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Ottawa
Title: Sensitive detection of foodborne pathogenic bacteria using microfluidic devices
Date, Time and Place: Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, TB 202
Identification and quantification of foodborne pathogens are becoming increasinglyimportant to public health and food safety since the majority of foodborne illnesses and deaths are caused by pathogenic bacteria. Conventional methods for foodborne pathogen detection are time-consuming and laborious due to the requirement of a series of processes including cell enrichment, isolation and morphological identification. Therefore, the demand for rapid, sensitive, inexpensive and convenient approaches to detect foodborne pathogenic bacteria has emerged in recent years. Among those new approaches, microfluidic chip-based detection has generated growing interests because of their miniaturized size, improved sensitivity and reduced detection time. To this end, our research group have been working on strategies to enhance detection signals using aptamers to effectively capture detection targets and subsequently enhance detections by rolling circle amplifications (RCA). In this seminar, I will talk about our recent efforts to surface modify microfluidic channels in order to improve target capturing efficiencies and discuss our approaches to intensify signals for sensitive detections.
Schematic drawing of the microfluidic microchannel detection system with RCA signal enhancement