A system capable of diagnosing food poisoning within an hour with the push of a button has been developed, raising expectations that it will be able to prevent food poisoning accidents in various fields, including school cafeterias and food manufacturing sites.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) announced on the 24th that it has developed Korea's first fully automatic integrated diagnostic system that can automatically detect 16 types of food poisoning bacteria within one hour.

Compared to existing food poisoning testing methods, it is gaining attention as a next-generation food safety management technology that can be immediately applied in the field, such as at schools, food service facilities, and local government inspection centers, with a dramatic improvement in speed and convenience.

The research team of the Diagnostic Sensor Laboratory of the Daegyeong Area Convergence Research Center of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (Senior Researcher Chan-Yong Park, Principal Researcher Dong-Kyu Lee, and Postdoctoral Researcher Chang-Ha Woo) developed a 'field-type, high-speed, fully automated integrated system for food poisoning diagnosis' that integrates food decontamination, nucleic acid preprocessing, and molecular diagnosis into a single device.

This equipment automatically performs the entire process of isolating, purifying, amplifying, and detecting food poisoning bacteria in food, allowing even non-experts to conduct food poisoning tests with the push of a button.

The existing standard method for food poisoning testing involved culturing bacteria in food, which took at least two days and up to a week.

Although some molecular diagnostic technologies have been introduced, their field application has been limited due to the need for specialized equipment and skilled personnel.

On the other hand, the machine learning system automates all steps of desorption → preprocessing → nucleic acid amplification → reading in a single module, enabling results to be confirmed within an hour.

This system utilizes the hydrodynamic forces generated by high-speed propeller rotation to selectively isolate only food-borne pathogens without damaging the food.

Afterwards, impurities are removed using a multi-membrane-based vacuum filtration technology, and large samples of 200 mL or more can be quickly processed.

Purified nucleic acids undergo 40 cycles of thermal cycling amplification within 15 minutes using high-speed control-based molecular diagnostic technology.

In addition, by applying a dedicated reagent that detects two or more fluorescences simultaneously in one well and a low-cost CMOS-based multi-fluorescence sensor, it is possible to simultaneously and highly sensitively diagnose 16 types of food poisoning bacteria notified by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

All processes are operated by automated software, and are convenient and reliable enough for even non-experts to use in the field.

The system is currently being tested across a variety of food groups at two demonstration sites, with field applicability and analytical accuracy being demonstrated throughout the demonstration process.

It is evaluated that the possibility of practical application is very high as time efficiency has been greatly improved compared to existing methods.

Senior Researcher Park Chan-yong said, “The biggest advantage of this system is that it can quickly and accurately detect food poisoning bacteria in the field and is easy to use even for non-experts,” adding, “It will play a big role in preventing food poisoning accidents in various fields such as school cafeterias, food manufacturing sites, and local government inspection centers.”

Research Fellow Lee Dong-gyu said, “ The technology that automates all processes from food decontamination to nucleic acid purification and molecular diagnosis in a single device is an achievement that presents a new paradigm for the domestic food safety management system,” he emphasized.

This study was conducted as part of the 2023 National Demand-Tailored Life Safety Research and Development Project (Phase 2) hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.