Project description
RNA profiling tests for food quality control
Food quality control is crucial for consumer safety, enabling the detection of substitutions and fraud. While next-generation sequencing holds transformative potential, its practical applications remain limited. Current DNA-based tests primarily identify animal, plant, and bacterial species in food products, but often lack the efficiency needed for accurate detection. The ERC-funded foodRNA project aims to develop RNA profiling tests that are cheaper and more sensitive than existing methods. These tests will improve food safety and quality, with a particular focus on plant-based products, while enhancing fraud detection. The project will offer services to national food control agencies and high-end food producers seeking accreditation. As consumer awareness increases, demand for these advanced tests is expected to grow.
Objective
The field of food quality control is important to all consumers - ensuring food safety and detecting food substitutions and fraud. Next-generation sequencing has the potential to revolutionize the field, but practical solutions are lagging behind. State-of-the-art DNA-based tests yield limited information beyond what animal, plant and bacterial species constitute a given food product - and in some cases performing that task sub-optimally. Profiling RNA in food products can potentially yield important novel information that DNA-based tests cannot - including expression information that can be used to ensure food safety and quality and detect food fraud. With a focus on plant-based food products, we will develop, optimize and set up tests that will be substantially cheaper and more sensitive than the state-of-the-art, allowing upscaling in food quality control. We will provide our product as a service to national food control agencies (which we already collaborate with) and also to high-end food producers as an accreditation service. We foresee that as consumer awareness increases, the demand for these tests will increase exponentially in the future.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-POC
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10691 Stockholm
Sweden
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