Microbial Research
You may be working in a variety of industries, doing research into food, or cleaning products. You may be developing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, or healthcare products, or developing procedures for maintaining sterility in products, processes or environments. You may be inventing pet food or even looking at shelf life of healthcare products.
Or maybe you are an academic researcher who has an interest in a whole host of areas from medical to food to pharmaceutical.
But all of you have one thing in common. You want and need to understand how bacteria behave in a variety of conditions and media.
You may be using test equipment that varies from large lab based machines that can test tens of samples or maybe you just use a simple agar plate. No matter what you currently use we think you will be excited about Speedy Breedy.
Speedy Breedy is a portable microbial respirometer that is driven by protocols that are designed on a PC and downloaded to Speedy Breedy. You can use your own culture medium and design experiments that enable you to monitor and visualize microbial activity in near real time on your PC.
You can experiment and watch microbial behavior as you introduce metabolic promoters or inhibitors storing experimental data on the internal SD card or uploading it to your PC. Speedy Breedy is very easy to operate and, since the culture chamber is completely sealed does not require laboratory conditions to operate effectively.
Speedy Breedy is also portable, so you can take it into the field or use wherever there is a 12 volt or mains supply.
Speedy Breedy uses two new sterile gamma irradiated culture vessels for every experiment to ensure test integrity.
Product Safety
Product contamination and recalls are bad for everyone. Unwanted publicity can inflict massive brand damage and in food safety sometimes has fatal consequences for the consumer. Testing for product contamination typically requires sending a sample to a laboratory where it’s mixed with a rich growth medium. If bacteria are present they feed on the growth medium over a period of time, typically days. During this time positive release is not possible.
This is a costly process. The time taken to send samples to the lab and wait for their return can be up to two weeks during which time inventory cannot be shipped and billed, and available warehouse space diminishes.
Speedy Breedy can cut the cost of this process without the need for large capital investment.
Speedy Breedy does not require laboratory conditions to operate effectively, nor does it need laboratory staff to perform the test. Samples can be taken on the factory floor inoculated and the test started immediately. Delay in sending samples to and from the lab is gone, also the potential risk of sample degradation during transit and the risk of contamination after it has left its origin is removed.
Speedy Breedy uses two sterile gamma irradiated culture vessels for each test to ensure test integrity.
Clean Water Testing
There are several scenarios where testing for clean water is essential for human and animal health.
Water companies have to test to ensure that contamination has not been introduced following repair of clean water supplies and new clean water installations are free from contamination before they are commissioned.
Well water can become contaminated at any time with faecal contamination being a particular problem. Common causes include a breach of the well or septic system, uncontrolled surface water run-off, or pollution by livestock waste.
Only through testing can you be assured of a continued supply of clean, safe water. In the USA many state and federal authorities recommend private wells be tested at least once a year to ensure the continued safety of the water. Transport of the sample can however be a problem both in logistics and speed.
Although many bacteria may be present in wells and other local water supplies, Coliform bacteria are a commonly used indicator of sanitary quality of drinking water. One member of the coliform group, Escherichia coli can be distinguished from most other coliforms by its ability to ferment lactose at 44°C and formation of gas within 48 hours is practically specific for Escherichia coli and indicative of faecal pollution. Some strains of E. coli can cause serious illness in humans.
One example where Speedy Breedy safeguards consumers is a simple method to differentiate coliforms of faecal origin using established culture principles and media. Speedy Breedy grows the bacteria in a selective environment and indicates a positive or negative result. A simple colour change in the medium confirms the result.
- Speedy Breedy differentiates faecal coliforms from other bacteria using a simple, rapid protocol utilising the selective medium, MacConkey broth and a culture temperature of 44 deg Celsius. This combination is practically specific for Escherichia coli and indicative of faecal pollution of the original sample.
- Speedy Breedy is extremely sensitive and can detect single organisms within a test volume of 50 ml in a little over 10 hours.
- By visualising pressure curves, differentiation of coliform from non-lactose fermenters can be determined by laboratory professionals should this be required.
- Speedy Breedy operates at 12 volts or mains adapter and is suitable for remote locations, field stations, portable units or other situations where rapid access to a laboratory is difficult.
- Speedy Breedy requires little user training and no interpretation so can be used by unskilled operators.
Sterility Testing
There are many processes and businesses that require and can benefit from on-site sterility testing.
Testing the final rinse water after a cleaning procedure immediately the clean is finished can assist food processing, preparation and packaging businesses to avoid introducing contamination into products from equipment and surrounding areas. For these businesses time is of the essence and avoiding a shut down of a production facility can save both time and money.
Using Speedy Breedy as part of a routine sterility programme can help organisations identify contamination early, hopefully before it becomes part of finished products.
Contamination testing of raw materials or final product is an essential part of many processes and protects both the operators, the customers and indeed the company name.
Speedy Breedy can be used on the factory floor or in storage rooms to incubate samples of raw materials or components, final product, or machine rinses in order to detect contamination. Speedy Breedy does not require highly trained staff. The culture vessel is just populated with a sample and the operator presses start. Simple.
Speedy Breedy has utility in numerous industrial microbiology applications and has demonstrated rapid culture and detection of many industrially important microbes.
Speedy Breedy can be used as a general contamination test using a broad spectrum culture medium, conditions and protocol, or with more specialised conditions for groups of related organisms or even particular species.
Speedy Breedy is proven for the culture and detection of microorganisms with a range of culture requirements and is significantly faster than a large laboratory instrument in independent studies.
Speedy Breedy can be used:
- With a wide range of culture media.
- With selective culture media for the growth and detection of specific organisms.
- From 14 – 44 degrees Celsius
- For the differential culture of target organisms.
- For aerobes, facultative anaerobes, anaerobes, and microaerophilic organisms.
- For the culture and detection of yeasts.
Veterinary Medicine
Speedy Breedy can be used for the early detection of septicaemia and is suitable for any location, size of veterinary laboratory, clinic, or local surgery. Up to 50% of foal deaths are attributed to septicaemia.
Speedy Breedy offers rapid microbiology testing in just a few hours, on-site, for reduced time to detection and facilitating improvements in animal health, improved antibiotic usage and reduced costs.
Early detection of septicaemia is critical to the prognosis of infected animals. Both companion animals and commercially produced livestock are prone to infection leading to diverse economic, practical and emotional considerations. Point of Care testing has significant advantages in reducing the time to detection and subsequent treatment allowing for the efficient management of drug usage and animal recovery.
Using Speedy Breedy in Veterinary practices reduces the time to detection as not only is Speedy Breedy faster head to head with lab based machines there is no need to send samples to a lab and wait for test results. This can cut days of diagnoses.
There is an opportunity to significantly improve the outcome for the animal patient by:
- Increasing the speed of growth and detection with improved technology.
- Starting the test at the time the sample is taken and immediately providing optimised conditions for controlled growth of pathogens and early detection of their presence.
- Providing a modular technology designed for any size or location, reducing the need for transport of samples in many cases.
Speedy Breedy uses patent pending rapid culture and detection technology proven to be approximately 40 % quicker than comparable clinical competitors. More detail can be found on our on-line lab. Beyond the technical advantages, practical features designed to allow decentralised or remote testing and particularly suitable for veterinary applications include:
- Modular, single patient instrument
- Simple operation, easily inoculated by Veterinarians or other local practitioners
- Very small size and footprint taking into account space constraints
- Operates at 12 volts (or by mains adaptor) with very low power consumption
- Cost effective with no maintenance
Speedy Breedy provides point of care inoculation of samples, eliminating lag phase, degradation of the sample and delays due to transport of sample or out of hours operation. Samples are immediately placed into suitable growth conditions for rapid proliferation further reducing the time to detection, even in a Veterinarian’s car or van.
