PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (June 8, 2022) The food sector has made significant progress in ensuring food safety in recent years. With the rising usage of new food additives and innovation in the manufacture of food, there is an increasing interest in researching the use of high-throughput chemical safety testing procedures. Harshica Fernando, Ph.D., will use an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved low-cost, high-throughput method to identify and quantify toxins in food with her recent $100,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Fernando is an assistant professor of chemistry in the Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts and Sciences. She earned the USDA 1890 Institution Teaching, Research, and Extension Capacity Building Grants (CBG) Program funding for her project Professional Development In Assessing The Food Safety Using The Chemically Activated Luciferase Gene Expression
(Calux) Bioassay. The CBG program supports projects that strengthen research and extension programs in high-need areas of studies and experimentation.
Fernando will focus her efforts on impacting the safety of seafood. Her novel approach is to identify standard levels of toxins that consumers can tolerate. She will explore toxicity levels based on age and weight, similar to methods used when determining medication dosages.
Because of Prairie View A&M University’s (PVAMU) proximity to Galveston and Kemah, Texas, Fernando will have access to a steady supply of sample materials.
“If we take a seafood sample in the summer, and another in December, it will yield different results. We are prone to hurricanes here, how does that impact the toxicity levels? There are oil seepages and contaminants in the soil. All of these things affect toxicity. We need to understand what is safe for consumption”, said Fernando.
“Dr. Fernando’s project will have a positive impact on rural and urban communities across the nation and bring awareness to consumers and food producers,” said Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA, vice president, PVAMU Division of Research & Innovation. “By including undergraduate and graduate student researchers in the study, they too will gain awareness about food safety and will get trained in methods of assessing food quality and safety, which will inspire them to pursue higher studies.”
The CALUX assay is new to the department of chemistry at PVAMU. It is a low-cost, high-throughput method that provides a biological response to aryl hydrocarbon receptor active compounds. These compounds bind to the receptor complex and subsequently bind to the specific sequences of DNA, which triggers the expression of associated genes.
“It is imperative to learn and apply this bioassay technique to my research related to food safety assessment and to offer consumption guidelines for consumers,” said Fernando.
“There is growing global awareness of the increased diagnoses of obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers with data suggesting some geographical locations are more prone to specific diseases because of the consumption of food, whose quality and safety being contaminated,” said Vice President Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA, PVAMU Division of Research & Innovation. “With this project, Dr. Fernando is using her expertise in chemistry to identify multiple toxic chemicals present in a variety of food that is harmful to humans. Her research probing the level of toxins in tested food will aid in the development of consumption guidelines with respect to body weight and gender.”
Fernando stated, “I am looking forward to setting up the lab and carrying out the experiments, which would lead to new results/publications, collaborations, and future funding.”
Karen B. Cotton, MS, MA