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This user-friendly system provides real-time monitoring through simultaneous enrichment and detection.
Running a microbiological test to detect Listeria present in a plant has always been problematic. If it couldn't be run in house, it was sent to a lab with results provided days later. If testing equipment was available, experienced operators had to run it, and it still took 24 hours or more to get a result.
A startup company has purchased licensing rights to a new technology and built a system that allows anyone to take samples and run a Listeria test. The company, CERTUS, has constructed a hardware-software system that simplifies testing for Listeria, providing quantitative results in real time. Besides environmental testing, the analyzer will also be able to test for Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli in food samples. Environmental monitoring will be the initial rollout for Listeria and Salmonella, followed by E. coli. Later, plans for food testing will be introduced to the market.
The CERTUS pathogen detection system was designed and developed through strategic collaborations, says President John Coomes. The core SERS (surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy) technology and instrument design were licensed exclusively from Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) for applications in food safety. Assay reagent development has been conducted in collaboration between CERTUS and UK-based Solus Scientific. Solus has expertise in the development of immunoassay-based tests, specifically for food pathogen testing, and has a line of AFNOR- and AOAC-validated ELISA tests.
Coomes has big plans for migrating this technology beyond environmental Listeria, but most of all, he wants it to be affordable for medium-sized processors, offsetting all the costs involved in farming out tests to a local lab. Coomes describes this technology and explains...