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Wednesday, 25th February 2009 (1520 views)

Gold could play a role in the future of food technology, it has been claimed.

According to the Discovery Channel, the precious metal is being used in nanotechnology research aiming to improve the tracking and tracing of food products.

Oxinca, a Californian company, produces nanobarcodes made from gold stripes varying in width, length and amount, which can be used to tag individual products.

The fact that billions of combinations are available means the barcodes can be used to trace food batches, technology that may be useful should a disease outbreak occur and investigators need to trace the source of the contaminated food.

And the development has been welcomed by Lori Sheremeta, research officer at the National Institute for Nanotechnology in Edmonton, Canada, who told the news source that "the most important" applications of nanotechnology are in the areas of "spoilage, bacteria … [and] crop safety".

In related news, the precious metal is also helping in research to cure cancer.

It was announced today that scientists have used gold to develop a simple method of introducing gene regulators to cancer cells.

 

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