NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Agilent Technologies today said that it will collaborate with the US Food and Drug Administration on food testing applications.
Under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the FDA, Agilent will aim to develop new DNA-based tools for detecting and analyzing pathogens in food. The first part of the project is focused on developing an assay panel, using mass spectrometry-based genotyping, to identify subtypes of salmonella in food.
Agilent said that it also has signed a second agreement with the FDA and the Campden BRI laboratory in the UK to update Agilent's lab-on-a-chip method of DNA analysis to identify fish species and ensure that seafood is correctly labeled. The technology is based on the Agilent Bioanalyzer, which uses fragment length polymorphism. The partners aim to devise a method that is fast and inexpensive but "simple enough that many kinds of laboratories can use it on a routine basis."
Terms of the agreements were not disclosed.