NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Food testing and analytics startup Clear Labs said today that it has signed a US distribution agreement with Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) for rapid food-based pathogen screening technology.
As part of the agreement, Clear Labs will implement ONT's GridIon NGS platform to run its Clear Safety serotyping and detection assays on food samples. The firm said that its bioinformatics software and laboratory automation, paired with the GridIon, will help customers minimize risk, determine results in food specimens within 24 hours, and react quickly to pathogen outbreaks.
"The technology stack we've built at Clear Labs is designed specifically with our customers' needs in mind, with a focus on speed and accuracy at every step," Clear Labs CEO Sasan Amini said in a statement.
In addition to Clear Safety, Clear Labs also supports testing for authenticity, GMO, and microbiome testing.
"When [Clear Labs] approached us about leveraging GridIon in Clear Safety, we saw a unique opportunity to meet a critical business need in the industry — a fast turnaround and the ability to fit into a completely automatic system," ONT CEO Gordon Sanghera said in a statement.
For more on how Clear Labs is using Oxford Nanopore sequencing in its food testing workflow, click here.