7. Outlook

At present, the food industry is not yet very receptive to biosensor technology. It is probably for the rapid detection of microorganisms or toxins that this type of technology has the best chance of developing, provided certain key problems are resolved. To compete with HPLC, capillary electrophoresis or other analytical techniques, biosensors need to be designed to measure several different analytes in parallel using a single analyzer, and without having to change any of the biosensor components. As Biacore systems are only capable of analyzing 4 to 8 analytes simultaneously, new systems have recently become available which can monitor a greater number of analytes in a single analysis. In particular, Applied Biosystems' 8500 Affinity Chip Analyzer platform [ http://www. appliedbiosystems.com/8500...