A team led by Purdue University’s Bruce Applegate has developed a new time-saving assay to detect an especially severe strain of E. coli in ground beef.
The toxin produced by E. coli accounts for 175,000 illnesses annually in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has maintained zero tolerance for O157:H7, an E. coli strain that can be life-threatening, since 1994. Zero tolerance means that if even one cell of E. coli is detected in a standard 325-gram (11.4-ounce) sample of ground beef, the entire batch is flagged as unfit for…
