IDT and Clear Labs Ink to Improve Food Safety Through NGS-Based Testing Technology

As part of its ongoing mission to break down the barriers in genomics research, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) is extending its network of collaborations into food quality and safety. Through a new multi-year supplier agreement, IDT will be the primary supplier of NGS oligo products for Clear Labs’ groundbreaking automated and intelligent NGS-based food safety platform. Clear Labs chose IDT’s products because its NGS offering meets the stringent standards for quality, quantity, speed, and performance required to deliver the superior accuracy that it strives for in its testing technologies. This strategic collaboration demonstrates IDT’s commitment to pushing science forward and driving positive outcomes in people’s everyday lives through genomics research.

One of the key challenges in food safety is being able to assure people that their food is safe to eat, without adding a premium to the cost. Clear Labs operates at the intersection of genomics and food, enabled by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology, which has already revolutionized the consumer genomics market. Clear Labs’ testing approach is the most accurate and comprehensive test developed for molecular profiling of food and foodborne pathogens. By coupling the first high-throughput, fully integrated sample preparation and sequencing platform with scalable cloud software and real-time analytics, Clear Labs has created the most powerful food indexing engine available today.

In designing its NGS-based food safety platform, Clear Labs wanted to take food safety to the next level by providing in-depth analyses of food products. The technology doesn’t just detect whether food and environmental samples contain pathogens like Salmonella or Listeria, but also provides information on serotypes and strains. Clear Safety, the company’s flagship product, includes a software component, which enables users to visualize contamination incidents on maps of their food plants. In addition to providing a superior level of analysis, Clear Labs recognized that, for its NGS-platform to be viable, it needed to also be cost-effective. This is where IDT and its commitment to lowering the barriers of time and cost to genomics research comes in.

Taking advantage of IDT’s expertise in designing high-quality and affordable oligos, this collaboration helps provide food producers with fast and high quality food safety testing at a fraction of the cost. It also expands the application of IDT’s NGS products into a new and exciting area.

Roman Terrill, Senior Vice President of IDT commented, “We are very excited to work with Clear Labs on their unique NGS-based food safety platform. Our NGS products are often used to help research into complex diseases, such as cancer. With Clear Labs, we saw an exciting opportunity to help tackle an issue that affects every one of us daily – the quality and safety of our food. And our oligos met all the requirements set out by Clear Labs for their innovative approach to NGS-based food safety.”

As with any area of research, trust and transparency are essential in food safety. With this in mind, Clear Labs continually strives for superior accuracy in its testing products and procedures. Ramin Khaksar, Vice President of Research and Development at Clear Labs, explains how they chose IDT as their primary supplier of NGS oligos: “Maintaining the accuracy of our testing platform is paramount, and so we have strict requirements for quality, quantity, speed, and performance from our supplier partners. To decide upon an NGS supplier, Clear Labs canvassed the ‘DNA-writing’/oligo industry and ultimately selected IDT as our primary supplier of NGS products. IDT meets all of our exacting needs and is able to fill our quantity requirements while delivering the necessary oligo-specific QC capabilities – something that array-based providers could not offer.”

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