Salmonella is one of a clutch of common pathogens that have a key impact on public health. It can be transmitted through raw meats and poor kitchen hygiene and causes serious food poisoning. Effective but easy-to-use detectors for the microbe are keenly sought.

By attaching a silica-encapsulated nanoprobe for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to the tailspike protein of a virus that infects bacteria, researchers at the National Research Council, Canada, and National Chung Cheng University, China, have devised a highly specific detector for rapid screening, detection and identification of the pathogenic Salmonella bacteria.

• Silica encapsulated SERS nanoprobe conjugated to the bacteriophage tailspike protein for targeted detection of Salmonella
  L.-L. Tay, P.-J. Huang, J. Tanha, S. Ryan, X. Wu, J. Hulse, L.-K. Chau,
  Chem. Commun. 2011.
  DOI: 10.1039/C1CC16325F