Food Safety

Every month or two, the news media report another outbreak of bacterial food contamination. E. coli O157:H7 in hamburger and spinach, and E. coli O104 in sprouts; Salmonella in eggs, seafood and poultry; Listeria in milk products… bacterial contamination in foods has become a growing problem that is only compounded by the increasing resistance of many of these organisms to antibiotics.

Food-related infections with these organisms can not only cause diarrhea and discomfort, but can be life threatening. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control states that there were 97,000 E. coli O157:H7 infections in the United States in 2010, resulting in over 170 deaths, and the recent food-related infections with E. coli O104 in Western Europe resulted in 39 deaths.

Purocin™ proteins offer a promising new technology for protecting the food supply from bacterial contaminants due to their great specificity and safety. Purocin proteins can be engineered not only against specific bacterial species, but against specific strains of a bacterium, such as E. coli O157:H7. Laboratory research has shown Purocin proteins not only to be non-toxic and biodegradable, but highly potent against targeted bacteria.

AvidBiotics has partnered with the global sanitation and food safety company EcoLab to develop Purocin proteins against E. coli O157:H7 for use in the meat processing industry, a product that could become commercially available in 2012.

AvidBiotics is currently developing additional Purocin proteins for food safety, including those targeting Salmonella.