Combining Selective Probe Surface Chemistry with the RADIAN-ASAP for Simple and Rapid Detection of Antimicrobial Agents in Feed, Animal Tissues, and Food

This CAST project will collaborate with Waters Corporation to develop their recently launched RADIAN-ASAP product for the simple and rapid detection of antimicrobial agents in feed, animal tissues, and food.

Antimicrobial resistance is a clear and present threat to modern medicine and broader human, animal, and environmental health under a ‘One Health’ perspective. Antimicrobials are used extensively for preventative and treatment purposes in agriculture. Although substantial progress has been made in reducing the use of antimicrobials in agriculture, their accumulation in the food chain poses serious health hazards. Therefore, there is a real need for simple and rapid screening of antimicrobials in feed, animal tissues, and food. Currently, the most used screening methods are based on microbial growth inhibition, but can often give false positive results. Liquid chromatographic separation coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer can be used as an alternative, but methods can be time-consuming, expensive, and require specialist user skill to complete.

This industry supported CAST project will collaborate with Waters Corporation to develop their recently launched RADIAN-ASAP product for the simple and rapid detection of antimicrobial agents in feed, animal tissues, and food. At approximately 10% of the size of a traditional triple quadrupole instrument, this instrument presents a step-change in mass spectrometry by making it available to non-specialised laboratories without a requirement for advanced expertise. However, to achieve this smaller and simpler instrument, sacrifices in selectivity and sensitivity are made. This project will address this through a multidisciplinary approach combining the microbiological and mass spectrometry expertise of the PI (Cameron) with the analytical chemistry and surface chemistry modifications expertise of the Co-I (Panagiotis Manesiotis). Four objectives will be completed as part of this project:

Objective 1: Development of Workflows for Analysis of Feed, Animal Tissues, and Food using RADIAN-ASAP

Objective 2: Probe Surface Modifications to Target Antimicrobials

Objective 3: Comparison of RADIAN-ASAP Measurements with LC-TQ

Objective 4: Antimicrobial Activity Testing

This CAST project offers training in multidisciplinary research skills across analytical chemistry, microbiology, informatics, and surface chemistry modifications. The student will experience research in different Schools/Faculties, which will give a good grounding in multidisciplinary collaboration. As well as having a strong theoretical and basic research foundation, the studentship will explore applications to food safety and microbiology and benefit from being industry-facing. This will equip the student well for a research and development career in academia or industry/public-sector. Through the project partner (Waters Corporation) the student will be exposed to a diverse industry experience and interact with members of the Food and Environmental Scientific Operations group. This will allow them to explore the product development process and understand business development considerations. This will involve include a placement at the mass spectrometry development headquarters of Waters Corporation in Wilmslow, UK. As part of the additional in-kind contribution to this CAST project, the student will also gain experience with cutting-edge mass spectrometry equipment (the RADIAN-ASAP) that is not widely available at academic research facilities in the UK. Because of this close collaboration, the student will be able to liaise with product specialists at Waters Corporation and ensure that their development work aligns with industry and customer needs.

This project will be supervised by Dr Simon Cameron (Queen's University School of Biological Sciences), Dr Panagiotis Manesiotis (Queen's School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering), and Dr Peter Hancock (Waters Corporation).

Start Date: 1 October 2022

Duration: 3 years

How to apply: Applications must be submitted via https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/user/u_login.php

Skills/experience required: Experience in (bio)analytical chemistry; surface modification chemistry; willingness to travel to Wilmslow (near Manchester, UK) for partner visits; experience with or knowledge of mass spectrometry.