Grant: Alliance Grants

Antibiotic detection in dairy is very important. If dairy farmers ship contaminated milk, they risk heavy monetary fines. Additionally, antibiotics in food can lead to allergic reaction and antibiotic resistance. This project will develop a dairy microfluidic device. The device is developed through collaboration between Agrisan and Dr. Collier's research group at The University of British Columbia. The goals for the device development are to detect multiple antibiotics (as antibiotics are given to cattle in cocktails), to have user-friendly operation (for eventual on-farm use), and to avoid false positives. These goals will be achieved through a set of research tasks involving several graduate students. These tasks are as follows: 1. Characterizing antibiotic flow velocity. This is to understand separation behaviour of multiple analytes. 2. Performance of system with multiple antibiotics. This is to demonstrate this fundamental operation for a cocktail of antibiotics, as in the real world application. Task 3: Scripting of operations. This is to clarify user input. Task 4: Implementation as touch screen. These tasks ensure user-friendly operation. Task 5: Miniaturization. This is to ensure small footprint for on-farm operation. Task 6: Integration of wavelengths measurements. This is assist with identifying false positives. Task 7: Experimentally demonstrating robustness to false positives. This will show the ultimate operation of the microfluidic dairy device. The results of this project will have far-reaching benefits to Canada's economy and health.