- Oct 30, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2024
Cell-based seafood specialist Umami Bioworks has expanded its biotech platform with the launch of Arbiter, a new food safety and quality assurance solution for the traditional seafood sector.
Arbiter leverages the company’s core marine biology knowledge, providing a solution designed to address the growing challenges of pathogen detection and quality assessment across the seafood value chain. It marks a key milestone for the business as it expands its offerings beyond cultivated seafood and pet food.
According to the start-up, the solution offers ‘unprecedented’ precision, speed and cost-effectiveness, with higher sensitivity, breadth and quantification than current pathogen detection methods.
The nucleic acid-based testing platform can detect up to 800 unique targets in a single run, delivering actionable results in under six hours. This not only provides early pathogen detection but can ‘drastically’ reduce labour intensity, Umami Bioworks said, with less than 15 minutes of preparation time for up to 50 samples.
At less than $1 per target, the platform aims to ‘democratise and universalise’ pathogen diagnostics and quality control by making them more accessible, objective and scalable.
The solution is suitable for applications in aquaculture, food safety and quality assurance and species authentication. As well as ensuring the safety and integrity of global food supplies, Arbiter can minimise economic losses attributed to common infectious diseases in seafood, across species such as salmon, shrimp and tilapia.
Additionally, the solution is designed to offer new capabilities for environmental monitoring and protecting ecosystems by identifying harmful pathogens in aquatic environments.
Mihir Pershad, CEO of Umami Bioworks, said: “The introduction of Arbiter not only embodies our commitment to pushing scientific boundaries but also to creating real-world impact by tackling significant challenges across multiple industries”.
“It exemplifies our core mission – to harness the power of cellular biology and our ocean heritage to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges and create a healthier future for humanity.”
