CD Laboratory for Monitoring of Microbial Contaminants

Bacteria, viruses, fungi - harmful microorganisms are a problem for food production, biotechnology, the chemical industry and many other areas. This laboratory aims to detect infestation with such "harmful germs" faster and more cost-effectively than was previously possible.

Whether food, pharmaceutical products or biotechnological applications are contaminated with bacteria, viruses or fungi has so far mainly been determined using microbiological methods: Samples are transferred to a culture medium on which any harmful microorganisms present grow and thus become detectable. These methods guarantee safety for consumers - but are time-consuming and costly for the producing companies.

The production of food often takes less time than the growth of bacteria in the culture medium. Contamination is therefore only detected once the products are already finished - and disposal is correspondingly more costly.

To solve this problem, molecular biological methods are being developed: The presence of bacterial DNA is to be detected directly at the production site. The methods for this are already widely used in basic research (especially genetics), but need to be adapted for use in production. New questions in this regard relate in particular to sample preparation and the actual detection method (qPCR).

So-called ionic liquids are an important means of achieving this. These are salts that are liquid at room temperature and were developed in organic chemistry. These liquids can be designed on the drawing board and their properties are predictable, which is why they are ideally suited to the questions posed by this laboratory.

One fundamental issue is to remove various harmful organisms from their carrier media (e.g. food) and detect them quickly and effectively.

The subsequent nucleic acid-based detection methodology is also a key area of research in this laboratory.

In the practical area, work is being carried out on stickers that are attached in the host institution and fix the smallest amounts of the target organisms. These are then eluted and the DNA detected (on-line monitoring). In this way, possible contamination can be detected early on in the production process and respond accordingly. The same goal is also being pursued by research into "concurrent" indicators, i.e. products that pass through the entire production process like all other products, but change colour if harmful microorganisms are present.