Human Practices

We are trying to eliminate enterohaemorrhagic E. coli from beef products, and to deal with this industrial problem, we worked with key stakeholders at key points of the production process. These conversations shaped our entire project and are the foundation of our human practices. Our methodology toward human practices was to tailor our detection system to the end users of the system. We made the following achievements in our human practices:

• Informed design (link): Input from four key industry stakeholders was used to redefine our project. Through these conversations, we assessed management of E. coli in the current industry and refocused our energy to build a novel tool for management of this pathogen prior to slaughter. We used input from these stakeholders to ensure that our system is easy to use, cost effective, and ultimately feasible for its application.

• Assessment of accuracy (link): We determined the sensitivity requirements for differentiating E. coli shedding in beef cattle. We assessed the potential impact of erroneous results with respect to current to post-slaughter detection requirements.

• Safety (link): Our final prototype is comprised of in vitro protein components from recombinant bacteria. This design alleviates concerns over escape of synthetic organisms into the outside environment.

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Informed Design

Early on in our project we realized that we really needed to understand how the beef industry worked and who all the players were within it. We needed to understand the culture of the industry. To do so we reached out the first link we could think of, our families. Where did we get our meat from? There is nothing more personal than the food we eat and understanding the last step in the long chain tells us a lot about the first step. Speaking of that first step...

Safety

While designing this project we also realized there was a very real concern from a safety perspective. The organisms we are targeting are listed as pathogens and can make people very sick. Thus we took a number of design considerations when building our technology.