Food scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a smartphone-based technology called BactiSee, designed to detect bacterial contamination on surfaces.
This innovation sets a new benchmark for quickly and reliably assessing cleanliness in various public environments. The technology offers a significant advancement for places like food processing plants, hospitals and gyms, aiming to control the transmission of bacterial risks.
BactiSee has been spun off into HertZ Innovation, Inc., a company seeking to bring the technology to market. This new method addresses the limitations of current practices for measuring bacterial contamination.
Yuzhen Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at UMass Amherst, worked with Lili He, professor and head of the Food Science Department, to transform their research into a marketable technology. BactiSee is based on over a decade of research conducted at the university.