Lunch vendor seminar, November 5, 2009 (12:45–14:00)
Veterinary Drug Proficiency Test and Multiresidue Screening Analysis
Sponsored by 
Proficiency Test for Veterinary Drug Residue
Francesca Diana, PhD, R&D Manager, Tecna Srl.
Food contaminants testing is an expensive work. Anyhow, the reliability of trace analysis in complex matrices is sometimes a question point, particularly for food retailers that ask manufacturers to comply with very strict standards. In order to check their performances and to be able to show an independent assessment of their reliability, industrial and service laboratories have to take part in proficiency schemes.
Performance assessment through external quality control is also a must to maintain ISO 17025 accreditation. According to the EU Commission Decision 657/2002, laying down the criteria for residue controls, "successful participation in adequate proficiency testing schemes" is required.
"Progetto Trieste" is providing since 1998 a proficiency service, originally limited to veterinary drug residue, now enlarged to mycotoxins and other food contaminants. In this proficiency a special care is devoted to screening assay, whose results are not mixed with confirmatory method results. The study of the results obtained during previous rounds allows to judge the state of the art in the field of veterinary drug residues testing, showing that not all the time validated methods perform as good as we would be expecting, and that many laboratories still have to improve their performances.
Multiresidue Screening of Food Contaminants by MK-Robot
Francesca Diana, PhD, R&D Manager, Tecna Srl.
A large number of food contaminants have to be analyzed nowadays. For this purpose, several ELISA kits are available on the market. In this context, automation could be a way to standardize results and help in the multiresidue screening of foodstuffs.
MK-Robot is a robotic workstation for the full automation of enzyme immunoassays that can host up to six microtiter plates.
Up to 160 samples can be managed and analyzed for one as well as for multiple contaminants.
The work time for the operator is highly reduced because MK-Robot is a completely "walk away" automatic system. Moreover the automation prevents errors that can occur to a human operator, therefore enhancing quality of results.
The validation results obtained with ELISA kits for the detection of mycotoxins as well as for veterinary drug residues, demonstrate that MK-Robot is an accurate, precise, time-sparing and error-free system for multiple ELISA tests, convenient even for medium throughput laboratories.
Register for Tecna seminar at e-mail address rd@tecnalab.com until 19th October. Please notice, minimum number of 10 participants in needed to organize this seminar.