Online

Emerson-Mason, Lukas

Nutrition and Food Sciences

2020

M.S.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder for which there is no cure, the only treatment being a lifelong abstention from a gluten containing diet. The FDA requires any food in the United States labelled gluten-free to contain less than 20 parts per million gluten as determined by validated analytical methods. The major sources of gluten in the American food stream are wheat, rye, and barley cereal grains, but the currently available methods do not detect gluten from these three grains equally. Bia Diagnostics, LLC has developed novel quantitative and qualitative immunoassays for the detection of gluten in foods, which are here validated following AOAC International guidelines. While the quantitative Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay method failed to satisfy the AOAC Standard Method Performance Requirement 2017.01, the qualitative lateral flow device method meets the requirements of the AOAC Performance Tested Methods (PTM) program, granted certificate no. 011601 for the detection of gluten in buckwheat, chocolate syrup, soy milk, corn flakes, rinse waters, and on stainless steel surfaces. When used in conjunction with a management plan, it is suitable for use by food manufacturers to show compliance with gluten free labelling regulations.