Seafood mislabelling
Purpose
Even with the plethora of laws and regulations protecting consumers from mislabeling of seafood, enforcing compliance has been challenging because of the unique nature of seafood itself. Unlike cattle, poultry, pork, crops, or other land-based food sources, the "farms" on which wild seafood is grown cannot easily be inspected. LeeAnn Applewhite realized in 2000 that modern technology could be used to solve this problem, was awarded several USDA SBIR research awards to develop the tools, and founded AFT to create a solution. Applied Food Technologies maintains an internal DNA database generated from a collection of economically important seafood specimens, which were taxonomically identified by third-party institutions, such as the Smithsonian and the Florida Museum. These taxonomically validated specimens were sequenced in multiple regions to create a database of unique sequences capable of correctly identifying and distinguishing different seafood species." Because only species identification testing that compares the sequence to a validated reference meets the current FDA guidelines for species identification, any lab not using a validated reference does not meet the FDA requirement. AFT's Applewhite says, "Using a public database to determine a fish species is not very useful because the data is only as accurate as the least careful person submitting sequences, thus, the DNA sequences for common substitutes can also appear in the database under the wrong name." FDA’s Stephanie Yao agrees, "Most other labs are pulling publicly available sequences off of the Internet to make their identifications, a practice FDA does not recommend for regulatory decisions." FDA's Yao continued, AFT "often runs samples for importers whose shipments are being held by the FDA and the FDA has released some of those shipments based on AFT’s results."History
Applied Food Technologies CEO, LeeAnn Applewhite, incorporated APL Sciences in 1997 after inventing a seafood test kit and licensing the technology to Neogen Corporation. APL Sciences received five USDAMilestones
*2000 – Started development of DNA-based diagnostics for seafood species identification through USDA SBIR research grant targeted toward the growing national issue of seafood mislabeling. :: Collaborated with the Seafood Industry to collect fish and shellfish species for taxonomical verification at museums across the country to establish a validated database of reference specimens. *2002 – Developed and launched the PCR multiplex Authenti-kit(SM) for Crab diagnostic kit for crab species identification. *2004 – Developed and launched the PCR multiplex Authenti-kit(SM) for Catfish diagnostic kit for catfish species identification. *2005 – Began partnering with US Foods after US Foods approached AFT to start a grouper authentication program, following recommendation by NOAA NMFS. ::– Worked with US Foods, FDA, and other Seafood Industry stakeholders to develop an acceptable sampling plan for species identification testing. ::- AFT began using protein fingerprinting techniques to perform species identification on a larger number of species. *2006 – Collaborated extensively with FDA to create regulatory standards and protocols currently recommended for molecular regulatory compliance testing for species identification. ::– Authenti-kit(SM) for Catfish becomes the first DNA method accepted for regulatory compliance testing by FDA after FDA approves Authenti-kit(SM) for Catfish for use in regulatory compliance testing under Import Alert 16-128. *2007 – AFT’s regulatory testing program expanded to collaborations with multiple state agencies to create state standards and testing programs for species identification testing using Authenti-kit(SM) for Catfish. ::– Collaborated with FDA to develop the extraction protocol for DNA-barcoding for fish species identification which later became FDA LIB-4420. ::– Greatly expanded industry and regulatory testing programs using DNA-barcoding for most fish species outside the Authenti-kit(SM) product line. ::- AFT began to use DNA techniques exclusively to identify seafood species. *2008 – Teamed with FDA to develop the requirements for private laboratory data reports (ORA Laboratory Manual, Section 7) for DNA-barcoding for Import Alert 16-128. ::– Began analyzing DNA sequence discrepancies in commonly used databases, such as Genbank and Fish Barcode of Life, to develop definitive secondary tests to differentiate between ::closely related species of commercially important seafood that cannot be distinguished using data from the public databases alone. *2009 – Initiated substantial research and development program to create DNA mini-barcoding and real-time PCR methods to discriminate closely related species, allowing AFT to distinguish between ::closely related species that are indistinguishable using current DNA-barcoding or public database-related protocols. *2010 - AFT moved operations from Virginia to Alachua, Florida and reincorporated in Florida. *2011 - AFT purchased the assets of EcoArray, Inc., bringing AFT into the environmental arena. AFT currently resides in the Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator. Today, AFT focuses on research and development work, which constitutes a majority of AFT revenues. AFT offers contract research services in its product portfolio. After the acquisition of EcoArray assets, AFT entered into the environmental water testing market. EcoArray’s core proprietary technology offers a comparison of fish gene expression with and without a certain environmental toxin to determine if the toxin is present in the water. AFT is also branching out into species identification testing in a number of new areas.Information gathered froReferences
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