ST Microelectronics release Verafoodborne Lab-on-Chip application for pathogen detection

Provider of molecular detection tests, Veredus Laboratories, and its technology partner, ST Microelectronics, have announced the successful development and deployment of VereFoodborne, a Lab-on-Chip application able to detect 10 to 12 food-borne pathogens in one test, including E. coli, which is responsible for a recent severe food poisoning outbreak in Europe.

VereFoodborne, based on STMicroelectronics’ Lab-on-Chip platform, is a portable Lab-on-Chip application that can detect and differentiate food-borne pathogens including E. coli, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (including E. coli 0157 and E.coli 0104), Salmonella, Listeria and Campylobacter.

The ability of the VereFoodborne Lab-on-Chip application to simultaneously lock on multiple segments of the genes of food-borne pathogens enables it to identify bacteria and viruses with a much higher degree of confidence compared to other tests. This capability is made possible with a microarray on the chip that allows it to detect multiple pathogens in one test, saving time and resources over existing approaches.

VereFoodborne is ideal for use in the testing and surveillance of food and is already being deployed to several pilot users in Asia.

“In the face of mutations and changes in the profile of the pathogens we need to detect, the combination of ST Microelectronics' Lab-on-Chip platform with Veredus’ molecular diagnostics expertise stands out as a powerful tool in the ability to provide rapid and accurate identification of pathogens and adaptation to new challenges,” says Anton Hofmeister, Group Vice-President and General Manager for ST Microelectronics' Microfluidic Division.

The VereFoodborne Lab-on-Chip application will be a very powerful tool for health authorities and the food industry to carry out food safety surveillance as well as poisoning-outbreak investigation. With this tool, health authorities can speed up their investigations of food-borne poisoning outbreaks, and thanks to VereFoodborne’s faster testing health authorities can eliminate ‘suspects’ faster and zero in on their ‘culprit’ pathogen more accurately.

This ultimately leads to faster containment and putting a stop to the spread of infection early on. Furthermore, wrong ‘suspects’ in a poisoning outbreak investigation can be released from quarantine faster, avoiding unnecessary costs and spoilage of goods.

Source: ST Microelectronics