Improving Capacity to Increase Throughput and Minimize Cross-Contamination During Sample Processing Utilizing a Bead Mill Homogenizer

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This project involves the purchase of an Omni Bead Ruptor bead mill homogenizer and associated supplies to increase throughput and minimize cross-contamination during sample processing. During a known or suspected disease outbreak that requires rapid analysis of large numbers of specimens, sample preparation is frequently a rate-limiting step in diagnostic testing. Cross-contamination of feed and other animal products can occur during manufacturing, handling, transport, storage, or at the point of consumption and may result in unintentional and potentially harmful exposures to excessive levels of vitamins, minerals, human or veterinary medications, pesticides, or other potentially harmful substances. Occasionally, accidental cross-contamination of diagnostic specimens may occur during either sample collection or in the course of preparation and processing for laboratory analysis. Our laboratory currently serves as a Vet-LIRN network laboratory to diagnose, characterize and report emerging and endemic veterinary diseases, including animal poisonings and food or feed contamination events. This purchase will enable us to process 3 to 12 samples simultaneously, compared to our current homogenization device that can only process one sample at a time. This high-throughput sample processing capacity will greatly reduce sample preparation time and the personnel labor involved. Finally, this bead mill homogenizer utilizes an individual sample tubes for each sample, avoiding the potential cross-contamination that may occur when the same homogenization blade is used for each sample as with our current device.