The University of Florida in Gainesville is announcing a new food safety test that could change the way people think about oysters. The standard rule is that shellfish are safest to eat in any month with an “r” in it – basically because that keeps people from eating oysters in the summer when temperatures are warmest and the Vibrio bacteria tends to flourish. However, a new quick and inexpensive diagnostic test developed by DuPont Qualicon and refined by UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences could make weeding out pathogen-loaded oysters much more practical and efficient. The test is based on a technology dubbed “quantitative polymerase chain reaction,” or QPCR diagnostics. Given a small sampling of oyster, the system tracks genetic material found in three harmful species of Vibrio by amplifying their DNA into large amounts that are easily detected. This is the first time this technology could be used in detecting pathogens in seafood on an industrial scale which could replace the existing tests which are pricy and take about a week to complete. The test will be demonstrated this month at the meeting of the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, followed by a workshop to demonstrate the methodology. The findings will also be published in the next issue of the American Organization of Analytical Chemists. The ISSC is a shellfish regulatory cooperation that will determine if the test is reliable enough to be used industrywide.
http://www.oysterradio.com
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