Biosensor to protect kaimoana for future generations

Balam Jimenez is a researcher at Victoria University.

An easy-to-use biosensor that can detect damaging toxins in seafood is expected to change the aquaculture industry. The man behind it all is Dr Balam Jimenez, a researcher at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University in Wellington, and it was his Whakatōhea-Mexican daughter Hinemoana who inspired him.

“When my daughter was a year old, we were planning to get some pipi so she could try them. But she couldn’t because there was an E. coli outbreak.

“I realised that a lot of the seafood that I grew up with on the coast of Mexico is not accessible ... and that’s because there are toxins and waste contaminants.”

When Jimenez saw similar closures and shellfish bans appearing in New Zealand, he wanted to do something about it.

He has now developed research using short single strands of synthetic DNA and RNA (or nucleic acids) that bind to a specific target - in this case, small amounts of toxin.

It forms the basis for technology that will be used to develop a toxin monitoring tool for iwi, communities and industry, Jimenez says.

Dr Jimenez putting an aptamer sample into the Circular Dichroism Spectrometer(CDS) machine that polarizes light and enables Dr Jimenez to understand how the structure of the aptamer changes when it binds the toxin.

Seafood contaminated with toxins from harmful algal blooms or paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), costs the global aquaculture industry approximately $8 billion annually.

The tool will enable point-of-care testing that will be widely accessible.

“On the ground, people are still dying because they’re having issues with the toxins, people are getting hospitalised. So that is where my heart is,” Jimenez said.

“We are the environment and if the environment is healthy, our food is healthy, our community is healthy, and that’s what we want to bring.”

The toxin monitoring tool is being calibrated and trialled for the aquaculture industry. A prototype is expected to be available in July.