"Biosensors development for real-time monitoring of volatile organic compounds"

Date: 28/09/2022, 13:30 at the Faculty club

Presented by: Boris Veltman, Ph.D. candidate

Supervisors:  Dr. Evgeni Eltzov (ARO-Volcani Institute) and Prof. Ido Braslavsky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Thesis Abstract

The world's population is increasing rapidly; however, the growth and production of available food for the entire population are not increasing at the same rate. Today, about 50% of agricultural produce is lost and wasted along the food supply chain from the farmer to the consumer. A considerable part of agricultural produce is wasted in the storage stages or packing houses due to contamination by various pathogens.

Conventional approaches and tools make it possible to identify pathogens in agricultural produce but require skilled staff, equipment, and time. Biosensors can be a solution for quickly identifying pathogens in agricultural produce during storage by continuously monitoring the air for the presence of specific volatile organic compounds released into the air due to the decay processes caused by the pathogens.

This work demonstrated a whole-cell biosensor's ability to detect a pathogen's presence before the appearance of decay signs. In this seminar, I will present the development of methods to identify the presence of different pathogens based on identifying unique volatile organic compounds for each pathogen by genetically modified bioluminescent bacteria.  

Related articles (published and in preparation):

• Chalupowicz Daniel, Boris Veltman, Samir Droby, and Evgeni Eltzov. "Evaluating the use of biosensors for monitoring of Penicillium digitatum infection in citrus fruit." Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 311 (2020): 127896.
• Veltman Boris, Dorin Harpaz, Sarit Melamed, Zipora Tietel, Leah Tsror, and Evgeni Eltzov. "Whole-cell bacterial biosensor for volatile detection from Pectobacterium-infected potatoes enables early identification of potato tuber soft rot disease." Talanta (2022): 123545
• Ma Junning, Boris Veltman, Zipora Tietel, Leah Tsror, Yang Liu, and Evgeni Eltzov. "Monitoring of infection volatile markers using CMOS-based luminescent bioreporters." Talanta 219 (2020): 121333.
• Veltman Boris*, Dorin Harpaz*, et al. "Whole-cell biosensor applied to identify the presence of Thaumatotibia leucotreta larvae in citrus fruit by volatiles sensing" (in writing)
• Boris Veltman*, Ma Junning*, et al. "Creation of a new Bioluminescence bacterial strains for Whole-cell based biosensor to detect a specific volatiles from infected potatoes" (in writing)