Despite recent guidelines from the European Food Safety Authority on the need for more data to evaluate long-term toxicity effects of certain cyclodepsipeptide foodborne toxins, no suitable affinity reagents are currently available to detect the presence of these toxins and derivatives in food samples.

During a previous collaboration in the context of a CRA, a series of de novo designed artificial receptor molecules or Synthetic Antibodies was developed able to bind cyclodepsipeptide food toxins beauvericin (BEA) and cereulide (CER) and analogues.The developed SynAbs represent the first ever described entities that can bind such toxins. Given the unavailability of classical antibodies, they represent the ideal starting point for the development of the so needed analytical tools to detect and sequester these toxins in food and clinical samples.

The novel patented and developed UGent technology is currently at a low TRL level and needs to be brought to a higher TRL level in order to attract industrial partners to be interested in the technology for further development towards market introduction and commercialization.