Clear Labs Clear Safety Listeria, Environmental Mapping Testing

Menlo Park, California-based Clear Labs has launched new Listeria testing and environmental mapping capabilities on its Clear Safety next generation sequencing platform.

According to Clear Labs, Clear Safety now catalogs the genetic "fingerprint" of a Listeria sample and compares it to the fingerprints of Listeria previously encountered within a company. The platform can now detect, speciate, and characterize up to seven Listeria species ( monocytogenes, grayi, innocua, ivanovii marthii, seeligeri, and welshimeri) in a single analysis.

Clear Labs also noted that researchers can use the platform's similarity analysis to distinguish resident from transient subtypes of Listeria in the food manufacturing environment, which groups samples containing Listeria with matching fingerprints and tags them with metadata including location, date, and time. The firm's environmental mapping tool then overlays Listeria contamination on a facility map, allowing the team to track the flow of particular subtypes of Listeria through a facility over time.