Edible Optical Sensors To Make Food Safer

Edible optical sensor that could be placed in produce bags to detect harmful levels of bacteria and consumed right along with the veggies.

 Designer Tufts
University scientists have demonstrated for the first time that it is
possible to design such "living" optical elements that
could enable an entirely new class of sensors, which have
applications medicine, health, the environment and
communications.
These sensors would combine sophisticated
nanoscale optics with biological readout functions, be biocompatible
and biodegradable, and be manufactured and stored at room
temperatures without use of toxic chemicals.
The scientists used
fibers from silkworms to develop the platform devices and now Tufts
University has filed a number of patent applications on silk-based
optics and is actively exploring commercialization opportunities.

The Tufts research was published in a
recent paper in Biomacromolecules.