Researchers are using the smell and taste receptors of insects to develop better performing sensor technology.

Quality biosensors

Food Futures Flagship biosensor research aims to improve the consumer appeal and safety of food. It will increase the overall global competitiveness of the Australian food and beverage industries and provide broader social and economic benefits in other areas such as security and health

• 17 August 2010 | Updated 2 April 2012

• Wine making takes on a scientific flavour
• Grape and wine flavour research
• Biosensor technologies research 
• New applications in defence
• Current projects

Wine making takes on a scientific flavour

Within the food and beverage industries, it is increasingly a priority to be able to measure and control flavour components of wine.

Flavour is a critical element of consumer appeal for the wine industry, with producers indicating that an important goal is to be able to grow grapes and make wine to specification.

Winemakers have traditionally focused their efforts on the control of flavour and aroma but reproducibly achieving the desired outcome is not necessarily predictable.

The goal of the biosensors theme is to understand, measure and optimise flavour throughout the grape growing and winemaking process.

Being able to do this will allow the industry to better meet consumer preferences and improve the competitiveness of the Australian wine industry.

If this technical goal can be achieved, given the size of the Australian wine industry, significant benefits will result in terms of new products and new markets.

This research has the potential to contribute significantly to the value of several areas of the Australian economy, through:

• increased value of domestic and export wine sales
• optimisation of resource inputs to grape growing and winemaking.

The research is expected to have additional benefits through application to other areas, such as:

• biosecurity through the exclusion of invasive pests
• improved medical diagnoses.

Grape and wine flavour research

Flavour and aroma are difficult properties to measure in food products, particularly in the complex mixtures of flavour compounds present in different Australian wines.

Grape berries and subsequent wine products have hundreds of compounds that contribute to their flavour and aroma.

The grape and wine flavour research program is investigating these flavour compounds and how they are influenced by environment and management practices. It is also developing new technologies to measure them.

The program’s aim is to deliver economic benefits through providing tools to objectively measure grape and wine flavour, aroma development and their management.

Biosensor technologies research

The human nose combines versatility and performance unmatched by any scientific instrument.

When people or other animals smell something, it is done via an array of protein receptors (olfactory receptors). Compared with existing instrumental sensors, olfactory receptors are tightly tuned to families of flavours and compounds. Despite this, olfactory receptors respond to overlapping groups of volatile odorants. It is believed that flavour and aroma are signalled by combinations of receptor outputs and interpreted by pattern matching of complex scents in the brain

Biosensor technologies research aims to develop a portable Cybernose™ instrument. This instrument will combine the advantages of a trained human nose with the convenience and quantitative capability of electronic noses and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometers.

This technology has the potential to give the Australian wine industry a new edge in flavour over its global competitors.

New applications in defence

CSIRO has been successful in gaining funding for an innovative proposal through the Department of Defence. The Food Futures Flagship, through CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences and Materials Science and Engineering, will be developing a non-contact instrument to detect and classify explosives.

The Food Futures Flagship has been conducting research into the microscopic sensors in insects and nematode worms that detect smells. This has led to identification of more than 200 different biosensor genes that react to different smells.

This new research program will lead to the construction of a prototype instrument that can perform non-contact chemical detection and classification of explosives using signature chemical vapours.

Sniffer dogs, while excellent at detection of explosives in the field, cannot distinguish between different types of explosives. This device will be as sensitive as a dog’s nose and will give operators clear advice on the nature of any explosives detected.

This prototype instrument will also be a forerunner for applications in the food, beverage and health arenas.

Current projects

Read more about our grape and wine flavour research in:

Read more about our Cybernose development in:

Read more about our consumer research in:

Find out more about the Food Futures Flagship research.