Skip to main content
SciX 2025 Main banner

Invited Presentation

RAM

RAMAN03: SERS 2

Rapid, Facile Detection of Bacteria Using a SERS Immunoassay

Monday, October 6, 2025
4:30 PM - 4:50 PM EDT
Location: Ballroom E
In fifteen words or less, explain the significance of this contribution (Novel Aspect).: We report unprecedently rapid, sensitive, specific and portable detection of bacterial pathgens

Abstract Text:
The detection of potentially harmful pathogenic bacteria is critical to public health and safety and of considerable interest to diverse sectors including food safety, security and diagnostics. Despite this, there is a continuing lack bacterial detection methods that are ideally fast, reliable, sensitive, specific and applicable at point of use. Consequently most industries remain reliant on expensive and time-consuming laboratory methods.



Here, we present a novel surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) immunoassay for the detection of bacterial pathogens using a simple 5-minute procedure. By functionalising spectrally distinct, ultra-bright SERS tags functionalised with highly specific antibody recognition moieties, it is possible to detect and differentiate clinically important bacterial strains such as Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia colli at concentrations as low as 10 CFU mL-1.



Based on these results, we further explore the practicality of the assay for real food safety and security applications. We demonstrate the ability of our assay to distinguish pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains of Listeria obtained from swabs and food matrices. Our results show strong potential of our assay format in real applications as we now prepare to translate to on-site testing.  Finally, we investigate the potential of our assay for in-field detection of a wide range of pathogens in complex environments, including non-bacterial pathogens such as viruses and toxins.