School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems<\/a> recently joined a multidisciplinary\u00a0project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u00a0and led by Arizona State University to develop a groundbreaking solution.<\/p>\nMichael Kozicki, a professor of electrical engineering at ASU, is directing an effort to create dendritic tags as a means to securely identify food at any point in the supply chain. Dendrites are shapes that occur abundantly in the natural world, such as the branches of trees, streams and tributaries of river systems and blood vessels and nerves in the human body.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese patterns form with a high degree of entropy, so no two dendrites are exactly the same,\u201d Kozicki said. \u201cAnd since dendrites are relatively easy to produce electrochemically or photochemically, we can cheaply manufacture dendritic tags or labels offering truly singular identities that are effectively impossible to forge or duplicate, unlike a bar code or QR code.\u201d<\/p>\n
Application of this dendritic technology could include, for example, labeling every head of commercially grown lettuce with the identity of the farm, field and row from which it is sourced. Such precision could enable a level of traceability that dramatically reduces the impact of a contamination incident. A small batch of tainted lettuce could be more quickly identified and isolated in the supply chain, preventing human illness and sparing tons of safe but suspect food that currently is destroyed out of caution.<\/p>\n
Kozicki and\u00a0Yago Gonzalez Velo, an assistant research professor of electrical engineering at ASU, have started working with students in the lab to improve and scale the currently manual and time-consuming process of dendritic fabrication using an electrolyte solution. Alongside tag production, they will test their output with stretching, bending, abrasion, heat, humidity and other factors that represent the rigors of the food supply chain.<\/p>\n
Razi, who was awarded $140,205 in funding from the USDA grant, will design and implement the processing pipeline, testing procedure and algorithmic foundation for using identity tags for their intended purpose.\u00a0Director of NAU\u2019s Wireless\u00a0Networking and\u00a0Smart Health Lab, Razi will use his image processing expertise to develop the algorithm and the reading system necessary to verify tag data using cellphone-based and cloud-based software platforms. This project builds on the work of his former and current graduate students, including Huayu Li<\/strong>, Ali Valehi<\/strong>, Han Peng<\/strong>, Zaoyi Chi,<\/strong>\u00a0Xiwen Chen<\/strong> and Hao Wang<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\u201cOn the network side, we\u2019ll need a reference library of images with which we can develop the algorithm to authenticate these dendritic tags,\u201d Razi said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be implementing techniques like graph theory and also deep learning methods to reconstruct an image of what is actually a 3D shape and then verify its legitimacy down to the nano scale. Additionally, we need to develop a cell phone adapter device and an app to make this system easy to use by industry and consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another important aspect of real-world application is integrating this innovative technology with current food systems processing materials and equipment. This part of the project will be led by\u00a0Mark Manfredo, a professor of agribusiness at ASU.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to working with our local industry contacts to help test what is being developed,\u201d Manfredo said. \u201cWe\u2019re already engaging with a large grower of organic greens, and we also hope to work with a melon grower in the state. We need to learn more about the supply chains for these commodities and ultimately evaluate the new tags in commercial settings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manfredo said the project team also needs to consider the most economically feasible place within the supply chain to adopt these dendritic identifiers in the context of current systems. \u201cIs it with the growers? Or the processors? Or with retailers?\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll look at all the incremental costs of implementing the tags at different stages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manfredo noted there is incremental value to consider in adopting this innovation. \u201cWhat is the economic value of applying these unclonable tags? Certainly, there is value in waste reduction. But the data also represent marketing opportunities,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, of course, the public health value is just enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Story by Gary Werner, Arizona State University, and Kerry Bennett, NAU Office of the Vice President for Research<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than\u00a048 million Americans\u00a0are sickened by foodborne illnesses each year, costing the economy more than\u00a0$15 billion. To combat this persistent problem, the\u00a0U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u00a0and other government agencies are prioritizing improved safety measures across all sectors of food production, processing, distribution and preparation. A core element…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":62140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}