COLUMBIA, Mo. – Azlin Mustapha, a University of Missouri food-science professor and researcher, is hopeful a new lab test will more quickly identify a livesalmonellaoften found in poultry and eggs within just 12 hours. Traditional tests can take five days.


Mustapha hopes the DNA testing procedure can be used by chicken and egg producers to findsalmonellabacteria earlier while limiting market recalls. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 40,000 cases ofsalmonella-related food poisoning each year.

Mustapha developed a similar procedure to detectE. coliin beef that is used by the state agriculture department. His latest research was recently published in theJournal of Food Science.