Melamine Detection

About

Background: Melamine is an industrial organic material widely used in plastic engineering. However, due to its high nitrogen content and low cost, it has been illegally added to food products as a protein adulterant to mislead the standard protein test that is based on the total nitrogen content. High levels of melamine exposure pose adverse health risks. Currently, the prevailing methods for the detection of melamine in food include ELISA and various chromatography-spectrometry based tools. However, these methods have very limited practical application because they require exhaustive sample pretreatment, expensive equipment, and skilled personnel. To solve this problem, researchers from UCLA have developed a rapid, low-cost screening tool for melamine detection that can be used in remote and underdeveloped areas.   Innovation: The Wei Lab at the UCLA School of Dentistry has developed a non-antibody based test strip to detect melamine. By simply dipping the test strip directly in the sample, melamine contamination will result in two visible lines while samples without melamine will only result in one visible line. The entire process only takes a few minutes and does not require any equipment or complicated data analysis.   Applications: Test strip for detecting melamine in food.   Advantages: Simple and easy to use Average people are able to perform the test High sensitivity No sample pretreatment Low-cost Long shelf life, as no antibodies are required