As an undergraduate food science major at Cornell, Kathryn Boor had no intention of becoming a microbiologist. But working in East Africa in the early eighties and experiencing firsthand the realities of malnutrition, altered her game plan.

" It was so apparent to me that so much misery in this world, including hunger , results from unintended and uncontrolled microbial growth. I vowed to myself to devote my career to working toward preventing the loss of foods through microbial contamination."

And that's what she has done. Collaborating with scientists across Cornell, New York state, and at universities around the world, Boor, associate professor of food science, creates strategies to prevent human exposure to dangerous pathogens. Her research focuses on the ability of bacterial cells to sense and respond to changes in their environment, survive in various conditions such as food and food processing, and cause human and animal disease.

For example, Boor's research team, which includes Martin Wiedmann, assistant professor of food science, used a database of genetic fingerprints of the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, collected from human, food, and animal bacterial isolates, to rapidly identify a nationwide outbreak of listeriosis-a disease caused by the ingestion of contaminated foods, which can cause brain infections such as meningitis and encephalitis-and track its source to contaminated hotdogs and cold cuts manufactured in a Michigan processing plant.

Boor also works with the New York state dairy industry to help produce safe and high quality dairy products by understanding which pathogens may be present in milk, what factors affect their survival, and whether or not strategies used in manufacturing ensure their elimination.

Her work has garnered international attention. She received the Institute of Food Technologists' 2002 Samuel Cate Prescott Award for her "outstanding ability in research in…food science and technology." And more honors clearly will come.

"Our research on genetic mechanisms contributing to cellular survival may lead to the development of new, broadly effective vaccines, for example, that we may be able to generate rapidly in response to new health threats. New data that we generate on unique characteristics of pathogenic microbes will lead to development of rapid detection strategies that will allow us to protect ourselves from unintended as well as intended biohazardous materials (weapons of bioterrorism). Our long-term goals are the continued creation of increasingly effective tools to prevent human exposure to dangerous microbes."

Antje Baeumner, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering, shares Boor's concern about protecting humans from dangerous microbes.

She designs portable biosensors that can be used to detect pathogens rapidly and sensitively outside of specialized laboratories. Applications include environmental analysis, food and water supply safety, and clinical diagnosis. Because these biosensors are able to analyze samples reliably, rapidly, and often cost-effectively, they are especially valuable in environments or situations where rapid testing is critical but difficult to perform.

Baeumner's believes her biosensors are distinctive because they combine " molecular biology, cell sample preparation, and highly sensitive detection" and because they are creating a "microfabricated platform technology that can be applied to almost any pathogenic organism."

With colleagues worldwide she is developing sensors that could be used to detect a host of biological pathogens, ranging from E. coli and Bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) to HIV and the Dengue virus.

With Boor she is developing a biosensor that would detect the presence of Vibrio parahaemolytics, a bacterium in the same family as cholera, in seafood and the ocean to help prevent human contamination and illness.

Collaboration is essential to Baeumner's research and one of the reasons she chose to work at Cornell with its diversity of programs and facilities.

"For me, it can be working with engineers to improve my transducers or helping engineers enter the life sciences; working with life scientists to use novel biological molecules with my biosensors or developing a biosensor that might solve one of their analytical problems; working with companies to test our biosensors with real samples from critical environments or helping other biosensor researchers develop new biosensors."

Having access to the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility, as well as the engineering and life sciences faculty, has helped her develop smaller, more sophisticated biosensors and has generated many ideas for possible applications.

Baeumner is excited by the potential these biosensors have to improve so many lives through early detection of life-threatening viruses.

Recently she has begun applying her biosensor system more closely to Bacillus anthracis and hopes in the next one and one-half years to be able to detect a single viable anthrax spore within four hours using a portable field-useable biosensor.

For the future, she envisions devices similar to home pregnancy tests or diabetic glucose tests that would allow analytic testing for pathogens to be done anytime and anywhere. "A lot needs to be done, and we hope to discover many new mechanisms along the way, but we are confident that it is feasible."