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V. KAPUR, Advanced Genetic Analysis Center, Univ. of Minnesota, Dept. of Veterinary Pathobiology, 325-C Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Saint Paul, MN 55108 It is well accepted that amongst the most important recent developments in biomedical sciences are the powerful new technologies to measure molecular, clinical and epidemiologic correlates associated with infectious and chemical agents that may contaminate our food supply. In the area of laboratory assays for pathogen and analyte detection, new generations of assays are being coupled with novel technologies for miniaturization and highly parallel detection to create radically new ways to detect and diagnose food contamination and infestation at the point-of-care and in a laboratory setting. Together with powerful mathematical models to analyze complex data to identify potential health risks and anomalies, these technological advances have enabled the development of rapid and reliable detection techniques that our group is adopting for select agent identification and diagnosis under the auspices of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense at the University of Minnesota. Our ongoing studies seek to develop and optimize the needed performance characteristics of novel, accurate, feasible technologies for achieving definitive point-of-care assessment of select agent status in post-harvest food supply, including robust, simple-to-use technologies for achieving parallel, open-ended, multi-analyte and reliable and valid clinical measures for point-of-care/use testing. Our overall goal is to develop valid, accurate, and convenient technologies and analytic methods that incorporate biological and epidemiological markers for quantitative assessment of select agent status in food as a key input into identifying natural and or intentional introduction of select agents into the US food supply. The presentation will summarize key unmet needs in the area as well provide an update on the results of our recent investigations on the application of state-of-the-art detection and gene expression technologies for the identification of select agent status in food.
Session 26, Food defense and protection: Detection of poisonous agents
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |