Fighting Food Poisoning With A Patch
Hackaday••health
Key Points:
- Scientists have developed a novel food safety method using microneedle patches embedded with bacteriophages, viruses that specifically infect and destroy harmful bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella in food.
- These patches penetrate up to a centimeter into foods such as meat, allowing bacteriophages to effectively reduce bacterial contamination by up to 99.9%, significantly lowering the risk of foodborne illness.
- The technology builds on existing FDA-approved uses of bacteriophages in food safety but introduces a new delivery system that targets bacteria inside food rather than just on the surface.
- Challenges remain for widespread adoption, including consumer acceptance of food punctured by microneedles, the practicality of targeting diverse bacterial strains, and concerns about consuming virus-treated
