March 2, 2010

US food safety centre to work with Agilent on testing methods

The National Centre for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) will partner Agilent Technologies to develop new testing methods for monitoring global food supply chains.

Under the agreement, the NCFST will install a number of Agilent's technologies in its lab in Summit Argo, Illinois, and Agilent will provide training and applications support from its food industry group.

"We're putting powerful analytical and biological tools into the hands of some very bright scientists from academia, industry and government, where their combined perspectives should produce creative solutions," Mike McMullen, president of Agilent's Chemical Analysis Group, said in a statement.

NCFST is a research consortium that includes the US Food and Drug Administration's Centre for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and food industry partners.

Through the collaboration, NCFST will install Agilent's 2100 Bioanalyzer; a 7700 inductively-coupled-plasma MS; a 6500 Accurate Mass quadrupole time-of-flight MS; a 6400 triple quadrupole liquid chromatograph/mass spectrometer; a 7000B triple quadrupole gas chromatograph mass spectrometer; a 1290 Infinity ultra high-performance liquid chromatograph; a 5975B GC/MS; and a 7890 GC.

The Agilent systems will give NCFST "greater capability to study chemical compounds of critical concern to the global food industry and regulatory authorities," NCFST's Director of Chemistry, Jack Cappozzo, said in a statement.

Capozzo said that the compounds for which it is testing include melamine, aflatoxins, pesticides, antibiotic residues, and Clostridium botulinum toxin.