European scientists have for the first time shown the presence of Campylobacter in chicken houses by monitoring the air that chickens breathe.
Campylobacter is one of the main causes of diarrheal disease in humans, and chickens are the primary source of the infection. The air-monitoring work has been done in BIOTRACER(www.biotracer.org), which is one of the largest European research projects in food safety, involving 46 partners from 23 countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa. The project began in 2007 and aims to improve tracing and tracking of pathogens in food and feed chains. To do this, the scientists and companies involved are using a number of micro- and nano-devices to improve the detection of pathogens at the source of infection in a costeffective and user-friendly way.
The novel method is based on sampling of airborne particles, amplification of DNA from Campylobacter, and wireless transmission of signal-all in one chip. The device including the chip is to be installed on the wall in chicken houses and to be maintained by the farmers. This costeffective method opens new horizons for monitoring and certification of animal production for safer food to consumers. Studies are underway to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach for detecting Salmonella in chicken as well. Chickens are known to be one of the main sources of human diarrheal disease, mainly caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter. The work has been published in a recent issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (75:2074-2078).
Jeffrey Hoorfar
Laurids Siig Christensen
National Food Institute
Technical University of Denmark Copenhagen, Denmark
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