For her science fair project, a seventeen year old high school student from Mississippi developed a faster, less expensive way to detect chemicals such as melamine & cyanuric acid in pet (and other) food. Natalie Saranga Omattage won a $50,000 scholarship for her efforts.

Last year, when cats and dogs in the United States started dying from an ingredient in imported pet food – as many as a thousand pets died, sparking the largest recall in the history of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – a high school student in the southern state of Mississippi decided to look for a more efficient and less expensive way to find food additives that may be contaminated.For her research into biosensors, Natalie Saranga

Omattage, who was born in the United States but whose parents are Sri Lankan, was named one of three young women to win the top honors at the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

Here’s more from Intel…

In her search for a better solution, Natalie Saranga Omattage, a student at The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus, Mississippi, explored alternative methods of detecting melamine and cyanuric acid in food. Using peptides with a high affinity to these chemicals, Omattage developed an effective quartz crystal microbalance-based biosensor capable of detecting melamine and cyanuric acid at low concentrations and in just a matter of minutes. Further, the biosensor is portable, less expensive than current screening methods, and does not require highly trained personnel to operate.

Omattage’s biosensor is not only applicable to screening for food contaminants, it may also be used to detect other harmful chemicals.

I wonder if Natalie realizes just how many people’s lives she’s touched with her experiment. I’m guessing she’s going to be quite busy in the future, saving lives – pets and people.

Technorati Tags: cyanuric acide, melamine, pet food, contaminants, food