Springer Ensuring Wellness: Immunosensors Monitoring Food Quality, and Pathogenicity Risks

With the prevalence of foodborne pathogens on the rise, the food industry faces an urgent need for novel and rapid detection techniques, with an emphasis on early surveillance and detection. Though contamination can occur at any stage of production, conventional methods, such as gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography, have typically only been applied towards the end of the process. Not only are these methods costly and labor-intensive, but the fact that they are performed only towards the end of the production process also exposes the industry to significant loss. One increasingly popular alternative to conventional methods is information and communications technology (ICT), and electrochemical bio- and immunosensors in particular. Ensuring Wellness: Immunosensors Monitoring Food Quality, and Pathogenicity Risks impresses on its audience the need to utilize immunosensor applications in the food industry. An immunosensor, which can take an electrochemical, optical, or piezoelectric form is a device that identifies and measures the specific interaction between an antibody and its target antigen, specifically the creation of a stable immunocomplex. Immunosensors offer user-friendly techniques for rapidly detecting foodborne pathogens in food and the environment, ensuring high precision and consistent outcomes. Applications for this technology include clinical diagnosis, food analysis, quality control, environmental investigations and industrial monitoring. Elucidating in-depth application of immunosensors in food sectors, this text bridges the gap between the research and food industries, and provides a timely, thorough update on the latest technological developments.