AOAC Method of the Year for Confirmation and Identification in Food Microbiology Awarded to MALDI Biotyper® OMA

At the 2018 Annual Meeting of the International Association of Food Protection, Bruker announces a standardized workflow for any microbial isolate confirmation and identification in food microbiology.

The world-leading, bench-top MALDI Biotyper enables fast microbial identification using protein fingerprinting with short times-to-result and minimum hands-on-time. The MALDI Biotyper is easy to use without any prior knowledge of mass spectrometry. The workflow uses isolated colonies from selective and non-selective agar plates for pathogen and quality indicator testing, or for quality and hygiene controls. The MALDI Biotyper simplifies and shortens confirmation and identification steps, facilitating and harmonizing the workflow with only one system for bacteria, yeast and moulds. Each sample is measured in less than a minute. The MALDI Biotyper software includes a user-friendly interface and offers data interpretation that is designed for food microbiology applications.

Two applications on the MALDI Biotyper were recently recognized and published as Official Methods of Analysis (OMA) of AOAC INTERNATIONAL for selected pathogens confirmation and identification of other bacteria from various agar plates, leading to two standardized methods. Together, AOAC 2017.09 and AOAC 2017.10 are considered important achievements and improvements in food testing, and will be awarded the 2018 AOAC Method of the Year by the Official Methods Board of AOAC INTERNATIONAL.

The MALDI Biotyper has also been validated by MicroVal for the confirmation of several foodborne pathogens. The MicroVal committee has members from Europe and North America, including experts from food safety authorities, food testing laboratories and method developers. Together with MicroVal and the Lloyd’s certification body, Bruker has been an early adopter of the new technical rules of ISO/DIS 16140-6 for validation of confirmation and typing methods.

DeAnn Benesh, President of AOAC INTERNATIONAL, stated: “The AOAC-OMA Program sets rigorous scientific standards for methods to ensure that they demonstrate the highest quality in analytical results, apply innovative technologies, have a broad applicability, serve a critical need and demonstrate a significant improvement. The AOAC Official Methods Board has determined that based on their novel approach of confirming and identifying organisms, both new MALDI Biotyper Official Methods of AnalysisSM, AOAC 2017.09 and AOAC 2017.10, will receive the AOAC Method of the Year award.”

Dr. Daniele Sohier, Business Development Manager - Food Microbiology at Bruker, commented: “We are honoured to receive the AOAC Award for the Best Method of the Year 2017-18 in the food microbiology framework. The MALDI Biotyper shortens time-to-result in food microbiology and has broad species coverage. Implementation of the MALDI Biotyper has the potential to improve the analysis quality, shorten time-to-result and generate significant cost savings in food microbiology testing.”

Additionally, the MALDI Biotyper reference library for filamentous fungi has been updated to cover the most important taxa and species from food mycology, offering an advance for food fungal testing applications.

A dedicated workshop on using the MALDI Biotyper in combination with other technologies, a symposium on the use of high-throughput technologies in food microbiology routine testing, as well as three scientific posters showing the reliability and reproducibility of the MALDI Biotyper in studies will be displayed at this IAFP Annual meeting.

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