Hong Kong based startup Vitargent has developed a food testing technology with fish embryos to detect toxic substances in food.
Though the technology has been developed for food and beverages, it also has applications in areas such as cosmetics.
Vitargent claims the technology can screen for more than 1,000 chemicals or toxic substances such as DDT and BPA at one time, unlike traditional product safety tests that usually only test five to 10 toxins at a time.
The company hopes the technology will help improve food safety.
It makes use of engineered enbryos of oryzias, which have the ability to develop tumours or turn fluorescent in the presence of harmful substances called Estrogenic Endocrine Disruptors (EEDs).
As Munchies reports, the fish will light up like a glowstick in the presence of bisphenol-A in a water bottle.
While talking to South China Morning Post, Vitargent founder and executive director Eric Chen said the DNA of fish is very similar to humans, and as such make for good subjects.
"While chemical-specific tests can be sensitive and precise, they are also very narrow and will not detect toxicants for which the analyst is not specifically looking for," Chen told Tech in Asia.
The fishes - medaka and zebrafish - are being cultivated by the company at Hong Kong Science Park, with further plans of fish farms in mainland China and Europe.
China has been rocked by numerous food safety scandals in recent years as the tainted baby formula incident that sickened 300,000, the contaminated meat in fast-food restaurants, whole goat-meat-soaked-in-duck-urine scandal and the infamous gutter oil debacle, among others.
