COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - A University of Missouri researcher hopes a new lab test will more quickly identify a food-poisoning bacteria often found in poultry and eggs.
Food science professor Azlin Mustapha says the test detects live salmonella within just 12 hours. Traditional tests can take five days.
He hopes the DNA testing procedure can be used by chicken and egg producers to find salmonella bacteria earlier while limiting market recalls. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 40,000 cases of salmonella-related food poisoning each year.
Mustapha developed a similar procedure to detect E. coli in beef that is used by the state agriculture department. His latest research was recently published in the Journal of Food Science.