A research team at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has reported a breakthrough method to rapidly detect Salmonella on beef and poultry products. This method has been proposed as a new, simple system for monitoring Salmonella and other foodborne pathogens in food samples, potentially resulting in improved food safety.
The lead author in the study, Soohyoun Ahn, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Florida, suggested that the technique could be used by government laboratories or by the meat and poultry industry to test for the pathogen.
The test uses a method called immunomagnetic separation, which uses small magnetic beads specially coated with antibodies, or proteins, which will bind only to the targeted Salmonella organisms and separate them from other organisms in a sample. Paired with a technique to increase the ability of equipment to detect the separated Salmonella organisms, this method allowed for the researchers to detect small amounts of S. enterica ser. Typhimurium and S. enterica ser. Enteritidis on ground beef and chicken breast samples, respectively, after as little as 12 hours. Other currently used methods for pathogen detection may take as long as 2-3 days and may not be able to isolate specific pathogens.
The research team hopes that this method will allow for rapid detection of other foodborne pathogens, and notes that a similar method has already been developed for E. coli in milk and ground beef. The full study is available in the Journal of Food Safety, and a press release to the announcement of the study is available here.
