US – A quicker, simpler way to distinguish between Campylobacter species has now been licensed for manufacture by two U.S. companies. The new culture medium called Campy-Cefex is specifically designed to detect and differentiate C. jejuni and C. coli mixtures of food-contaminating microbes. These two bacteria are important causes of foodborne illness.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Norman Stern, with the ARS Poultry Microbiological Safety Research Unit (PMSRU) in Athens, Ga., began developing the new medium in 1987. That’s when he traveled to Poland to work with researchers Boleslaw Wojton and Kris Kwiatek at the Veterinary Research Institute in Pulawy, Poland.