Thermo Scientific announced August 26 that its SureTect Listeria species Assay has received Performance Tested Methods status from the AOAC Research Institute. Food microbiology laboratories can now confidently test to a recognized standard for Listeria species.

The SureTect Listeria species PCR Assay has proven to be comparable to the ISO 11290-1 reference method. ISO methods are chosen by many companies against which to test human food, animal feed and environmental samples. The assay and other SureTect products are on display at the Thermo Scientific booth (208) during the AOAC Annual Meeting and Exposition at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, August 25-28.

“The SureTect Real-Time PCR System has been designed to streamline test workflow and reduce time to result, which are primary considerations in today’s pathogen test selection,” said Sumi Thaker, vice president of global marketing, microbiology, for Thermo Fisher Scientific, adding, "All of our current assays are now validated according to the AOAC-RI Performance Tested Methods program.”

The SureTect System was developed to detect microorganisms quickly and accurately in a broad range of foods and associated samples. The system combines:

• Ease of use: Pre-filled lysis tubes and tableted PCR reagents to minimize the number of pipetting steps and hands-on time
• Speed: Optimized single enrichment step for key food matrices and straightforward sample lysis in less than 20 minutes
• Convenience: Common PCR protocols facilitate efficient processing of multiple assays in the same run
• Superior PCR Technology: Probe-based real-time assays for maximum sensitivity and specificity