The availability of safe food is crucial for maintaining both nutritional well-being and overall health security. Estimates indicate that 1 in 10 people fall ill after consuming contaminated food, and globally, 420,000 people die each year due to unsafe food consumption. Food contaminated by bacteria, viruses, and chemicals places an undue economic burden on the population. According to the World Bank, the cost of treatment in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is pegged at US$ 15 billion. Furthermore, food supply chains can be protected by robust surveillance and monitoring mechanisms that limit foodborne disease outbreaks, maintain consumer confidence, and protect trade interests. Traditional methods of detecting foodborne pathogens and other contaminants are often time-consuming and demand technologies that are rapid, highly sensitive, and hold a point-of-use application. Biosensors that utilise CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technology stand as a suitable alternative offering immense potential for research and development (R&D), and scalability, thus ensuring food safety.
Science in Action: Biosensing for Food Safety (Lakshmy Ramakrishnan – Observer Research Foundation)
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