Oil spill response

Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that its global Food Safety Response Centre in Dreieich, Germany, has developed two new analytical screening methods in response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil samples collected from the Gulf region were used to develop the step-by-step testing procedures for detecting petroleum contamination in oysters and fish, specifically hydrocarbons and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.

“We created our global Food Safety Response Centre to help our laboratory customers around the world quickly mobilize during a food contamination crisis,” said Marc N. Casper, the company’s president and CEO. “The incident in the Gulf is a clear example of the type of threat the centre can address.” The centre was opened earlier this year and is reported to be equipped with the company’s latest equipment including liquid and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.

According to Casper, “Our new methods for detecting petroleum in oysters and fish were designed to significantly reduce analysis time and enable our customers to meet the demand for rapid and reliable testing of seafood from the Gulf for the foreseeable future.”

To download the methods visit www.thermofisher.com

This story originally appeared in The Column. Click here to view that issue.