CHEMISTRY ANALYTICAL TRACK 4 (DEVELOPMENT: ALLERGENS) Trace levels of an allergen can induce anaphylactic shock leading to death within minutes. The core tenet of this large and multifaceted proposal is to contribute a comprehensive and integrated food protection laboratory hub to the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) that is capable of analyzing many different foods across a diversity of threat priorities. MDH Laboratories Administration currently lacks the ability to analyze foods for any allergens, and therefore has placed a priority on developing allergen testing capability for our Food Chemistry Laboratory. A robust, sensitive, and facile test for detecting 15 common allergens has just become available. We will follow the detailed validation ?roadmap? established in a recently published article to implement the xMAP FADA assay in our Food Chemistry Laboratory. Importantly, our Food Chemistry Laboratory is equipped with a dedicated Food Kitchen that includes an oven and range for the controlled preparation of food, as required for this validation. Our activities under this developmental track will focus on achieving the prescribed Specific Aims.
