New Tests Make Antibiotic Monitoring Easier
Friday, May 2, 2008 - 17:14
in Earth & Climate
Detecting antibiotics in the environment could become easier to do, thanks to portable field kits developed and validated by a team of scientists. The team conducted studies showing that the kits, called enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), accurately detected trace amounts of sulfonamides, also known as "sulfa drugs," in wastewater samples. When these drugs are excreted in urine, for example, they can persist in the environment unchanged or as metabolites.