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Automated system speeds up study

30-Jan-2012

US food and wine research centre, the Robert Mondavi Research Institute (RMI), is using an automated colony counting system to speed up studies on the growth of bacterial pathogens in food. This work could help prevent a recurrence of last year's large outbreak of E.coli in Europe, which was associated with contaminated salad vegetables.

RMI is using the Protocol counting system from Synbiosis to measure pathogens such as E.coli 0157 and salmonella in fresh produce. Researchers have been able to monitor how pathogens grow under storage conditions and hope to reach a greater understanding of how to prevent outbreaks of food poisoning from these pathogens.

Dr Anne-Laure Moyne, staff research associate at the RMI says: "We run trials looking at how storing products such as almonds, pistachios and lettuce can affect the growth of bacterial contaminants. We can generate around 250 spiral, pour plates or gridded filters on plates every day, all of which have to be analysed."

Contact: Synbiosis

www.synbiosis.com

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