We are pleased to announce the publication of our study “Detection and characterization of Clostridium botulinum isolated from powdered infant formula” in Frontiers in Microbiology.
As part of an investigation into a multistate outbreak of infant botulism, IEH laboratories detected and isolated the microorganism from various samples including un-opened powdered infant formula cans. A tiered analytical approach was used combining pre-enrichment and highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction application which allowed for extremely low levels of C. botulinum in the samples to be recovered, isolated and characterized using whole genome sequencing. The findings of this study serve to improve current control measures for C. botulinum in the infant formula industry.