Progress 09/01/24 to 08/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:During the first year of this project, our primary target audiences have been academic researchers, students and trainees, and the broader agricultural and food safety community, with a strong emphasis on those positioned to benefit from or apply nanotechnology-enabled biosensing approaches. 1. Academic Researchers in Food Safety, Nanotechnology, and Biosensing Our work is highly relevant to scientists engaged in developing advanced detection platforms for foodborne pathogens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These researchers benefit from our results in nanophotonic chip design, CRISPR assay integration, and point-of-care biosensing methodologies. By sharing preliminary results through presentations in internal seminars and discussions with collaborators, we have contributed to the scientific community's understanding of how nanophotonic-CRISPR systems can enhance sensitivity and portability for pathogen detection. 2. Students and Trainees (Undergraduate, Graduate, and Postdoctoral Researchers) A key audience for this project has been the next-generation workforce in agricultural nanotechnology and biosensor development. Through hands-on training in chip design, microfabrication, molecular assays, and data analysis, students have gained practical experience in multidisciplinary research at the interface of nanophotonics, CRISPR biology, and food safety. The project provides both laboratory training and professional development opportunities, preparing trainees to contribute to future challenges in agricultural biotechnology and public health. 3. Agricultural and Food Science Stakeholders Although the project is still in the development phase, our intended end-users such as food safety laboratories, dairy producers, agricultural extension professionals, and regulatory agencies, remain a central audience. These groups face significant challenges in rapid and reliable pathogen detection within complex food matrices. The project directly addresses this need by developing a low-cost, portable, and user-friendly detection system that can be applied in non-laboratory settings, including on-farm or processing environments. In this reporting period, we have engaged these stakeholders through needs-assessment conversations and by aligning our testing protocols with conditions relevant to food industry practices. 4. Broader Public Health and Food Security Community At a societal level, the ultimate audience for this work includes consumers and communities impacted by foodborne illnesses and antibiotic-resistant infections. While direct outreach to this audience will occur at later stages, our Year 1 activities have focused on establishing the scientific and technical foundation that will ultimately improve public access to safe, nutritious, and secure food. By targeting pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella enterica, we are addressing critical threats to food safety with broad implications for human health. 5. Collaborative and Cross-Disciplinary Networks Finally, our project activities have engaged a network of collaborators across nanotechnology, microbiology, and agricultural science. These professional interactions are important not only for advancing the technology but also for ensuring that our chip platform can be disseminated to a wide community of users beyond our own laboratories. These groups are targeted because they represent the critical path from scientific discovery to practical deployment, ensuring that the nanophotonic-CRISPR chip has impact both in advancing knowledge and in protecting the U.S. food supply. Changes/Problems:No major changes or problems were identified during Year 1. The project has progressed as planned, with research activities, training, and dissemination efforts conducted in alignment with the objective 1 and the project schedule. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During Year 1, this project provided direct opportunities to train two graduate students and one undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research at the interface of nanophotonics, CRISPR biology, and food safety. Collectively, trainees received multidimensional training form theoretical modelling, laboratory training to research presentations and paper writing. Additionally, these trainees gained technical experiences in: · Research communication: Students presented their progress in internal group meetings and joint ASU-collaborator lab seminars, receiving constructive feedback to strengthen their presentation and communication skills. · Networking and collaboration: Trainees engaged in discussions across the PI and Co-PI's laboratories, gaining exposure to collaborative, cross-institutional research practices. · Conference participation: Students have gained the opportunities to participate in international renowned conferences such as AIChE, or SPIE (listed in other products). The training included abstract writing, poster preparation, and understanding conference expectations. · Exposure to grant and manuscript preparation: Graduate students contributed to literature reviews, figure preparation, and discussions on manuscripts and preprint submissions, developing early career skills in scientific publishing. · Career mentoring: The PI and Co-PI provided guidance on research career paths, encouraging exploration of opportunities in academic, government, and industry roles in agricultural biotechnology and biosensing. Impact: As a result of these opportunities, student participants significantly expanded their technical skillsets and improved their ability to communicate research across disciplines. Students acquired new competencies in cleanroom fabrication, CRISPR assay development, biosensor integration, and data analysis. These skills are highly transferable to careers in agricultural technology, biotechnology, and nanoscience. These training and professional development activities directly contribute to the USDA's mission of developing a skilled workforce equipped to address national food safety challenges. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During Year 1, the results of this project were disseminated to a range of communities of interest, including scientific peers, students and trainees, industry stakeholders, and members of the general public with limited prior exposure to nanotechnology and food safety research. Scientific Community: Research findings were shared with the academic community through presentations at internationally recognized conferences. For example, results were presented at the SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference (2024), highlighting advances in nanophotonic chip design, and at the AIChE Annual Meeting (2024), where the antibiotic-mediated plasmonic-Mie resonance approach was introduced to chemical engineering and biosensing audiences. These venues provided opportunities to reach diverse researchers across nanotechnology, materials science, chemical engineering, and biosensing fields. Additionally, results were disseminated via a bioRxiv preprint, providing early open access to findings, and through peer-reviewed publications (reported separately under the Products section). Students and Trainees: Dissemination also occurred through educational channels. Graduate and undergraduate students trained under this project presented their work in internal research group seminars and in joint lab meetings between Arizona State University and the Co-PI's institution, fostering cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration. These opportunities helped build students' scientific communication skills while broadening awareness of the project's applications across multiple disciplines. Public Engagement and Outreach: The project team also reached audiences not typically engaged in agricultural nanotechnology research. During the Arizona State University Open Day, the PI's laboratory hosted a lab tour that introduced visitors (11 prospective students' families) and local community members to ongoing work in nanophotonics and biosensing for food safety. Additionally, one high school student participated in a volunteer summer internship in the PI's laboratory, receiving mentorship and early exposure to laboratory science. This experience not only increased awareness of cutting-edge research but also stimulated interest in pursuing careers in STEM fields. The outreach to industry and producers is also planned which aims to ensure that device testing protocols were tailored to relevant agricultural conditions. Impact: In summary, dissemination activities in Year 1 targeted multiple audiences: the scientific community through conferences and preprints; students and trainees through presentations, seminars, and mentoring; and the general public through open-lab tours and a high school internship outreach. Together, these activities advanced both professional knowledge within the field and public understanding of how nanotechnology and CRISPR can contribute to safer and more sustainable food systems, while also inspiring the next generation of scientists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In year 1, we have successfully designed, fabricated, and integrated the Nanophotonic-CRISPR (NPC) Chip and demonstrated proof-of-principle assays. While these achievements established a strong technical foundation, the stated goal of Objective 2 (Assessment and Optimization of NPC-Chip to Detect Foodborne Pathogens) has not yet been fully met. The next reporting period (Year 2) will therefore focus on translating the prototype into realistic application settings, expanding validation across pathogens, and addressing technical challenges observed during initial testing. Technical Development · Pathogen coverage: Expand testing to multiple bacterial targets, including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella enterica, with emphasis on antibiotic-resistant strains to meet the project's core objective. · Benchmarking and validation: Perform systematic sensitivity benchmarking using serial dilutions of bacterial DNA, and directly compare NPC-Chip results to gold-standard PCR and culture-based assays. This will address the current gap in head-to-head validation. · Testing in food matrices: Evaluate chip performance in real food samples, particularly milk, to ensure robustness in practical conditions and to address challenges posed by potential inhibitors identified during Year 1 assays. · Performance assessment and optimization: Quantify detection limits and specificity for resistant versus non-resistant strains, with the goal of demonstrating reproducible detection at attomole concentrations or lower. Optimization will also include refining nanoparticle labeling and microfluidic packaging to reduce variability observed in early tests. Training and Workforce Development · Continue intensive training for graduate and undergraduate students, with additional emphasis on preparing manuscripts and presenting at professional meetings. · Recruit and train additional undergraduate students and consider hosting another high school intern to broaden STEM participation, strengthen outreach, and develop the next generation of agricultural biosensing researchers. Dissemination and Outreach · Present updated findings at national and international conferences such as ACS, CLEO, and AIChE to broaden awareness within the scientific community. · Continue publication of peer-reviewed manuscripts and outreach activities including educational intern, lab tours and reaching out extension specialists and food safety professionals to broaden the impact and accessibility of project results. · Engage with agricultural stakeholders, including extension specialists and food safety professionals, to share preliminary data and gather input on real-world requirements, guiding the refinement of the NPC-Chip for practical deployment.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Foodborne illnesses caused by bacteria such as E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella enterica affect millions of Americans each year, with antibiotic-resistant strains posing an even greater threat to public health and food safety. Current testing methods are often slow, require advanced equipment, or need trained laboratory personnel, making them impractical for routine screening in farms or food processing facilities. This project set out to address that problem by creating a small, portable chip that combines nanophotonic materials with CRISPR biology to rapidly and reliably detect antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food without requiring specialized expertise. In the first year, we successfully designed and fabricated nanophotonic chip structures on silicon substrates and demonstrated their ability to produce narrow optical signals that are highly sensitive to changes in the surrounding environment. We developed and optimized a CRISPR-based biochemical assay that can be coupled with these chips to specifically recognize antibiotic-resistant bacterial DNA and generate a measurable optical shift. Importantly, we integrated these two components into a functional prototype of the Nanophotonic-CRISPR (NPC) Chip and demonstrated its use in an antibiotic binding assay. Preliminary testing showed that the device produced a 22 nm wavelength shift in response to changes in the local refractive index during antibiotic coupling, a measurable and significant improvement compared to conventional assays. These accomplishments represent a change in knowledge by creating and validating new methods that merge CRISPR biology with nanophotonic chip technology, and a change in action by training graduate and undergraduate students to apply these techniques in practice. The change in condition is still underway, but Year 1 results clearly demonstrate that a portable, easy-to-use device for foodborne pathogen detection is achievable. As we move into Year 2, further assessment and optimization will focus on real milk samples. If implemented at scale, this technology could empower farmers, food processors, and regulators to rapidly identify contaminated food before it reaches consumers, reducing outbreaks of foodborne illness and improving the safety and sustainability of the U.S. food supply.
Publications
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2025
Citation:
J. Waitkus, J.W. Park, T. Ndukaife, S. Yang, K. Du. Antibiotic-Mediated Plasmonic-Mie Resonance for Biosensing Applications on a Novel Silicon Nanopillar Metasurface. Advanced Materials Interface 2400945, (2025)
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2025
Citation:
S. Feng, T. Tang, J.W. Park, A. S. Kumar, X. Li, S. Yang. 3D Printing-Threading of Gold Nanoplatelets for Enhanced Optical Wavevector and Spontaneous Emission. Nano Letters 25, 21, 85588563 (2025)
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