HK Joint School
1. Providing accessible pesticide detection technology for consumers
2. Promoting food safety and enabling informed consumer choices
3. Creating user-friendly software for analysis of pesticide level
It is shown that a strong link between pesticide exposure and increased risk of cancers such as leukemia, thyroid, and brain cancers.
Conventional methods used in detecting pesticides residues such as gas chromatography incur high costs and require lengthy time needed for detection.
According to the Hong Kong Consumer Council, 75 of the 127 samples of vegetables were claimed to be organic, of which 28 (37%) were found to contain pesticide residues.
We used a specialized aptamer for the binding of target pesticides, which then disrupts the expression of a reporter gene and causes a loss of fluorescence.
By uploading the photo of the test result onto the companion app, its colour intensity will be compared with the calibrated safety reference bar and the pesticide level will be clearly displayed.
