SAN CLEMENTE, CA, Jun 09, 2009 -- Micro Imaging Technology, Inc. (OTCBB: MMTC) announced that it has received AOAC Research Institute (AOAC RI) Performance Test Method(TM) (PTM) certification for the MIT 1000 System's (System) identification of Listeria species (PTM Certificate Number 060901).
Listeria are known to be the bacteria responsible for listeriosis, a rare but lethal food-borne infection that has a devastating case fatality rate of 25% (Salmonella, in comparison, has a less than 1% mortality rate). They are incredibly hardy and able to grow in temperatures ranging from 4 degreesC (39 degreesF), the temperature of a refrigerator, to 37 degreesC (99 degreesF), the body's internal temperature.
Furthermore, listeriosis' deadliness can be partially attributed to the infection's ability to spread to the nervous system and cause meningitis.
AOAC RI's "expert reviewers" performed a thorough evaluation of MIT's PTM validation study report that included 81 bacterial identification (ID) tests and resulted in a 99% accuracy score with only one incorrect ID.
In addition, 406 ruggedness tests were conducted to evaluate the System's flexibility should a user vary the test procedure from that specified by MIT. The PTM validation study report will be available for viewing on the AOAC RI Validated Methods web site (
http://www.aoac.org/testkits/testedmethods.html).
The study report will also be published in the Journal of AOAC INTERNATIONAL and a certification article will be published later this year in the AOAC Magazine, "Inside Laboratory Management."
Read More Here.
MIT is a California-based public company that has developed and patented a rapid microbial ID System that can revolutionize the pathogenic ID process and annually save thousands of lives and tens of millions of dollars. The System IDs bacteria in minutes, not days, and at a significant per test cost savings when compared to any conventional method.
Revenues for all rapid testing methods exceed $5 billion annually -- with food safety accounting for over $3 billion -- having expanded at a rate of 9.2 percent annually since 1998. Current growth projections are at 30 percent annually with test demands driven by major health, safety and homeland security issues.
The System is laser and optically based and uses the proven principles of light scattering in conjunction with proprietary PC-based software algorithms to ID microbes and create a proprietary database.
MIT, through independent testing, has proven the ability with high accuracy to ID the most dangerous and pervasive pathogens: E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus (
a.k.a. Staph) and twenty (
20) other species of bacterium.
The MIT 1000 System has numerous ID applications including food quality control, clinical diagnostics, pharmaceutical quality assurance, semiconductor processing control and water quality monitoring.
MIT has chosen to focus initial efforts on food quality control as recent events have created an urgent demand for quicker and cheaper testing -- demands that will promote a high-value return on any investment in MIT's technology.
