| Project Detail |
Nowadays, there is a big concern about food safety as unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, parasites, moulds and yeasts or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases, ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. World Health Organization estimated that 600 million worldwide, fall ill after eating contaminated food and water and 420,000 die every year, resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years. Diarrhoeal diseases are the most common illnesses resulting from the consumption of contaminated food, causing 550 million people to fall ill and 230,000 deaths every year. In addition, dairy products and specially milk can be contaminated with pathogen microorganism and produce customer disease. Monitoring the microorganism in dairy products would benefit public health, reducing foodborne diseases. The current technologies used for microbial detection are time-consuming (8 days) that generate an increase of the stock and storage cost and their manipulation is complex. In response, we at OXOBROBICS BIOSCIENCE have developed FOCALISE (facile oxygen consumption assay for lacteal industry and spoilage evaluation) microplates capable of performing a fast (2-3 h), high accurate, simple detection, non-cytotoxic, high sensitive and repeatability process of different type of microorganisms in dairy products and water. The FOCALISE multi well plates are preloaded with a fluorescent probe that is sensitive to the concentration of oxygen released to the medium by microorganisms allowing in a user-friendly and cost-effective manner the accurate detection of pathogens. Before the microplate achieves the market, we need to improve its development and do a business plan. Thus, in Phase 1 we aim to run a Feasibility Study that helps us to plan all technical, commercial and financial activities. The social and market impacts expected for FOCALISE in 5 years are an effective microorganism detection, €10.87 million in profits, 18 new people and a ROI of 5.21 per euro.
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