New PCR-based test replaces microscopy screening of feed

The new 2009 real-time PCR-based method will become the US Food and Drug Administration’s “one-stop shop” for testing animal feed for prohibited materials, replacing feed microscopy as the method of choice. By Dick Ziggers The Office of Research (OR) of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) recently developed a new method for testing animal feed for prohibited materials of mammalian origin. The method relies on polymerase chain reaction (PCR