Foodborne illness inflicts significant public health and economic burdens in the united states, causing over 45 million illnesses and over 3,000 deaths, as well as costing over $55 billion in economic…

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded The Regents of the University of California at Riverside $591,499 under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program on April 1, 2026, to develop rapid, in-field detection methods for foodborne pathogens in food products without the need for laboratory equipment or complex sample preparation.

The award funds research to address the limitations of current detection methods. Culture-based plate counting requires at least 18 hours and is labor-intensive; quantitative polymerase chain reaction and other molecular assays demand sophisticated equipment, electricity, skilled operators, and nucleic acid purification; and immunoassays lack sensitivity and generate false positives. The funded work targets a low-cost, highly sensitive assay suitable for non-laboratory settings that can detect both culturable and non-culturable foodborne pathogens.

The period of performance runs from April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2030, with performance taking place at UC Riverside in Riverside, California. AFRI is the nation's leading competitive grants program for agricultural sciences, supporting research, education, extension, and integrated activities across six farm bill priority areas including food safety, nutrition, and health.

Foodborne illness inflicts significant public health and economic burdens in the united states, causing over 45 million illnesses and over 3,000 deaths, as well as costing over $55 billion in economic losses annually. Due to a lack of rapid and sensitive detection methods for foodborne pathogens in non-laboratory settings, the contribution of food products to foodborne pathogen-associated outbreaks regularly occurs. However, the availability of routine foodborne pathogen detection in non-laboratory settings is limited. IT is even more challenging to detect non-culturable foodborne pathogens since they cannot be easily enriched. The gold standard culture-based plate counting is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and IT takes at least 18 hours. Additionally, the commonly used molecular assays (e.g., quantitative polymerase chain reaction, qpcr) require sophisticated equipment, electricity, and skilled operators. These assays also generally require nucleic acid purification due to the susceptibility to some inhibitors in foods (e.g., pectin and hemocyanin). Alternatively, immunoassays lack sensitivity and may give false positives. These limitations make the conventional detection methods impractical for non-laboratory settings. Thus, a rapid, low-cost, highly sensitive, and in-field assay without complicated sample preparation to detect foodborne pathogens in foods is of great significance in reducing foodborne illnesses.