An international team of researchers has built a nanoscale biosensor that detects food-borne bacteria.

The biosensor has a mix of gold and silver nanorods with antibodies to capture Salmonella bacteria. The Salmonella bacteria then cause the dye molecules to produce an enhanced fluorescence signal, even with a small number of bacteria present.

Food-borne pathogens cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year.

Traditional microbiological techniques for detecting food-borne pathogens can take up to five days; fluorescent antibody techniques require a large number of bacteria to be present.