If everything works, AGF Technologies Ltd. of Guelph could be in the GMO-detection business by Christmas using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology, which involves multiplying specific genes to the point where they can be identified.

AGF's technology is entirely different. It puts a minute amount of the genetic material that's in question on the tip of a fibre optic thread, puts that into the grain or food to be checked, and waits to see if things literally light up.

The technology uses fluorescence. If the genes that have been transferred to the grain or food via biotechnology are present, there will be fluorescence.

If, for example, the customer wants to know whether a batch of soybeans contains a particular Roundup-Ready gene, the fibre optic can be tipped with that gene and it will spy any Roundup-Ready gene in the batch. Dave Sparling, who is the new company's general manager, was cited as saying the same approach can be used to detect any genetic substance - E. coli O157:H7, Listeria bacteria, any gene that has been transferred via biotechnology, etc.

AGF Technologies is starting with GMOs because they are such a hot issue right now.

Sparling said the technology works in the lab and now field trials are being set up with grain companies.

AGF will run side-by-side tests soon to compare the latest in PCR technology with its fibre optic system. Sparling is confident it will be faster and will be accurate.

"It's an amazing technology," says Sparling, who was a chicken farmer at Cambridge until he decided to go back to university in 1996. He's now an associate professor of agri-business and economics at the University of Guelph, has sold his chicken quota, but retains the family farm as a great place to raise four children.

One of the star employees is Paul Piunno, who recently gained his PhD studying under Dr. Ulli Krull of the University of Toronto's Erindale College. Krull is the man who invented the fibre optic approach to detecting DNA, and Piunno has built on that original work.

Sparling said FONA started with a single fibre optic thread to test for a single substance, but now is developing a multiple-fibre, multiple-test system so a sample can be checked for several things at the same time. Another staff member is a food microbiologist who is concentrating on developing tests for harmful food-borne bacteria, such as Listeria and E. coli O157:H7.

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