Biomerieux has announced that an AOAC-RI certification has been granted (no: 060903) to the Vidas UP E coli O157 (Including H7) method for screening beef, selected produce and irrigation water.
Food manufacturers in the US and many other countries rely on AOAC-RI certified testing methods to release their products on the market.
The Biomerieux solution is based on recombinant phage protein, the latest technology for food pathogen screening, providing specificity and sensitivity.
E coli O157:H7 is a potentially lethal strain of Escherichia coli that has caused many food outbreaks in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.
Vidas UP is said to be the fastest method to detect E coli O157 (including H7) in raw beef that has obtained both Afnor validation/ISO 16140 and AOAC-RI certifications.
The method can deliver results in eight hours, where traditional methods can take up to 24.
It can analyse a broader range of sample sizes (up to 375g), allowing the food industry to more effectively manage its quality control process and improve risk management.
'Our bacteriophage technology represents a new generation of tests for the Vidas platform that delivers speed, added specificity and sensitivity,' said Alexandre Merieux, Biomerieux corporate vice-president, industrial microbiology.
Bacteriophages are highly specific viruses that only infect bacteria.
They use adhesion structures to bind to their bacterial hosts.
In Vidas UP, special binding proteins from bacteriophages are used for the targeted capture and detection of bacteria from a sample.
Exclusively licensed to Biomerieux, the recombinant phage technology was developed by the German biotech company Hyglos.
