California State Food Safety and Security Monitoring Project

A primary focus of the Food and Drug Laboratory Branch (FDLB) Chemistry Section is the monitoring of food and drug products to ensure a safe supply for public consumption. Personnel trained in the analysis of food matrices for the detection of toxins would continue to provide analytical support with sample analysis in the event of large scale food adulteration events. In addition, participation in ongoing matrix validation and proficiency testing by Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Liquid Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) will continue to advance staff skills and improve the laboratory’s response to food emergencies. The analytical expertise developed by these activities will provide the basis for the enhancement of current methodology by expanding LC-MS toxin screens to polar compounds that are not well detected by current FERN techniques. LC-MS methods will be developed for the detection of marine toxins in seafoods. ICP-MS methods will be expanded to include speciation of arsenic in a variety of seafood matrices. GC-MS screening will be used in surveillance of supplements for unlabeled and illegal ingredients. A further area of study will be the investigation of marine toxins by LC-MS and Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA).