The US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory has increased the efficiency of preparing its agar plates for microbiological research using an Integra Mediajet vario automated petri dish filling system.
Located in Dauphin Island (AL), the FDA’s Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory (GCSL) site is used by the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) to conduct research programmes related to seafood safety, especially seafood harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. The US FDA operates a mandatory safety programme for all fish and fishery products under the provisions of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the Public Health Service Act, and related regulations. The FDA program includes research, inspection, compliance, enforcement, outreach and the development of regulations and industry guidance.
George E Doup, research microbiology technician at GCSL commented: “Our lab is extremely satisfied with our decision to purchase and incorporate Integra’s petri dish filler for automatic pouring of 50mm and 100mm petri dishes. We process approximately 40 litres of media per month and prior to buying Mediajet we filled all dishes by hand, which required multiple technicians.
Now we use a single Mediajet configured with a 360-dish carousel to process twice as many dishes with far less technician involvement. We also have the ability to automatically dispense media into test tubes using the instrument’s tube filler option. The Mediajet has greatly expanded our lab’s throughput capabilities and has enabled us to reliably ramp up our research efforts“
