What if we could detect E. coli in an hour?

This year, like every other year, one in six Americans will get sick from a foodborne illness. That’s roughly 48 million people. According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 128,000 of those people will be hospitalized and 3,000 of them will die.

E. coli is a large group of bacteria that’s commonly found in the intestines of humans and animals. Most strains of the slender, rod-shaped bacteria are pretty harmless. They’re part of a healthy human gut microbiome. But when certain strains that normally reside in the guts of animals end up in our human intestines by way of contaminated food, they can become pathogenic and morph into an infection. That’s when we collide with the E. coli of Chipotle or Costco fame—E. coli 0157: H7—the kind of virulent strain that makes people really, really sick.

E. coli 0157: H7 is like a rampage strain, an outlaw among outbreaks. It’s been responsible for some of the worst in recent memory, including the notorious Jack in the Box outbreak of 1993, which sickened more than 500 people and killed four, at least three of them children.

In 2015, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducted a study on how much economic damage the United States suffers annually as a result of foodborne illnesses. It found that, of the 48 million cases of foodborne illness diagnosed every year, a specific pathogen could be identified in only 20 percent of them. And over 90 percent of those cases are caused by just 15 pathogens, including E. coli 0157.

The total bill tallies up this way: 15 wily, microscopic pathogens are behind nearly 9 and a half million illnesses. Those illnesses cost the U.S more than $15 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year.

Now, back to that identification business for a moment. Obviously, it helps whenever we can identify a strain of bacteria before it makes people sick. But conventional methods of detection—agar-culturing, for instance—can take at least 24 to 48 hours to yield results, and don’t always catch small traces of E. coli, particularly 0157: H7.

In recent years, PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a test based on the process of DNA replication and conducted in vitro, became a relatively cost-effective way to get same-day results on bacterial identification. But PCR requires lab use and trained technicians, and is highly sensitive to even the slightest procedural mistake, which can produce erroneous results. This makes detecting large-scale outbreaks—in food manufacturing, for example—a less-than-ideal use for PCR.

But what if detecting a foodborne pathogen was as simple as, say, scanning a food label for GMOs in the grocery store aisle? And what if getting an accurate result was just as fast?

Well, we might be a self-driving car ride away from that reality. Scientists at the Kansas Polymer Research Center at Pittsburg State University have developed a new nanosensor that can rapidly detect the presence of E. coli in food or water (is an hour fast enough for you?) and it may pave the way for prevention of outbreaks—not just of E. coli, but a range of other foodborne illnesses, too.