A quick test designed for combat soldiers under attack from biological weapons could make life easier for food companies concerned about pathogens in their plants and products.
Known as CANARY (cellular analysis and notification of antigen risks and yields), the technology grew out of work begun in 1997 by Todd H. Rider, a biologist with Lincoln Lab's biosensor and molecular technologies group. Funding came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which wanted to equip US soldiers with a portable, easy-to-use field test for biological warfare agents such as anthrax and smallpox. Rider's genius was to leverage white blood cells' ability to detect bacteria and viruses. When antibodies in the cell bind to a germ, they trigger a calcium signal within seconds. Rider and his colleagues infused white blood cells from a mouse with bioluminescent protein from a glowing jellyfish. The protein glows in response to calcium, and that light becomes the signal noise of detected bacteria and viruses. The white blood cells have been further engineered to produce antibodies only to specific cells, rather than all foreign agents. In a paper published in the July 2003 issue of Science magazine, researchers reported detection of as few as 50 colony forming units (CFU) of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, in less than three minutes. The probability of detection for 200 CFU was 99%, with a false-positive rate of 0.4%.