THIS SEED GRANT PROJECT IS SIGNIFICANT TO THE MEAT INDUSTRY AND THE PUBLIC, AS IT FOCUSES ON ESTABLISHING TRACEABLE MOLECULAR INDICATORS IN MEAT THAT CAN BE USED TO ASSESS MEAT DISCOLORATION ATTRIBUTES AND, IN TURN, ITS QUALITY. TO IDENTIFY AND UNDERSTAND THE MOLECULAR INDICATORS, WE WILL HAVE TO CONDUCT A RANGE OF WELL-DEFINED EXPERIMENTS USING VARIOUS MEAT EXTRACTS AND PROBE THE REDOX PROPERTIES OF VARIOUS MOLECULES. WE WILL ASSESS THE SENSOR'S ABILITY TO ACCOUNT FOR VARIATIONS IN MEAT COLOR DUE TO AGE AND PROCESSING, AS WELL AS THE STARTING MEAT COLOR VARIABLE. ADDITIONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING COLOR AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH REDOX POTENTIAL, AS WELL AS ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT, WILL BE INVESTIGATED WHEN COMPARED TO TRADITIONAL ASSAYS (OXYGEN CONSUMPTION OR SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC ASSAYS) IN HELPING TO DETERMINE MEAT QUALITY AND LIPID OXIDATION-INDUCED DESTABILIZATION.