SummaryThe European Parliament has called on Member States to strengthen their food safety control mechanisms by 2019 and this has become a priority for the French government. So far, there has been substantial progress in microbiological safety by developing rapid, cheap and sensitive methods that are used by regulatory authorities. However, on the chemical safety side, technical and societal transition is lagging behind. The current system is mainly reliant on surveillance and inspection plans revolving around high-performance reference methods capable of detecting toxic trace contaminants, but often expensive and cumbersome to implement, thus limiting the frequency and scope of controls. In such a context, we have proposed a collaborative project SENTINEL funded by ANR with objectives to develop a panel of three complementary high-throughput, sensitive, cost-effective screening tools for strengthening the detection of non-conformities, and for monitoring relevant sub-MRL levels of key contaminants such as PolyChloroBiphenyls (PCBs). Among them, our group focus on the development of a rapid, sensitive, cost-effective, portable electronic nose (e-Nose) for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOC) as markers. In this internship, we will explore the potential of our e-Nose for the applications in the field of food safety. The performance of the e-Nose will be evaluated by analyzing VOC samples at different complexity level, from pure individual VOC markers identified previously by the partner INRAE-QuaPA using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), to VOCs emitted by
in vitro samples (cells) and even by
in-vivo samples (chicken liver and/or plasma samples) after the contamination by PCBs. The internship will be carried out in a multidisciplinary laboratory SyMMES at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology and nanotechnology.
References
J. S. Weerakkody, M. El Kazzy, E. Jacquier, P. H. Elchinger, R. Mathey, W. L. Ling, C. Herrier, T. Livache, A. Buhot, Yanxia Hou, * “Surfactant-like Peptide Self-assembled into a Biohybrid Multi-sensor Array for an Electronic Nose”,
ACS Nano, 2022, 16, 3, 4444.
S. Brenet, A. John-Herpin, F. X. Gallat, B. Musnier, A. Buhot, C. Herrier, T. Rousselle, T. Livache, Y. Hou*, “Highly- Selective Optoelectronic Nose Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging for Sensing Volatile Organic Compounds”,
Analytical Chemistry, 2018, 90 (16), 9879.
S. Gaggiotti, C. Hurot, J. S. Weerakkody, R. Mathey, A. Buhot, M. Mascini, Y. Hou*, D. Compagnone*, “Development of an optoelectronic nose based on surface plasmon resonance imaging with peptide and hairpin DNA for sensing volatile organic compounds”,
Sensors and Actuators: B. Chemical, 2020, 127188.
Background and skills expected
Physical-chemistry with strong interest on the biology and nanotechnology.
Competences that will be acquired during the internship During this internship, the candidate will acquire different competences including different techniques concerning the conception and construction of classical biochips and novel electronic noses, surface functionalization (self-assembled monolayers, SAMs), as well as analysis of volatile organic compounds using electronic noses based on SPRi. Moreover, data processing and simulation will be performed in close collaboration with a theorist of our team.
SupervisorDr. Yanxia Hou-Broutin
LaboratorySystèmes Moléculaires et nanoMatériaux pour l'Énergie et la Santé (SyMMES UMR 5819 CEA-CNRS-UGA)
TeamChimie pour la Reconnaissance et l’Etude d’Assemblages Biologiques (CREAB)