SAFEbion-V, the new COVID tracker

Microbion is a Contract Research Organisation of molecular  microbiology applied to agriculture, food and nutraceutical industries. They provide scientific services, including:  phenotypic,  genetic,  genomic and  metagenomic custom-based analysis; and we develop innovative diagnostics tools to understand microbial biodiversity for industrial exploitation.

 The product, named SAFEbion-V, where V stands for Virus, is a coronavirus surrogate that make it possible to test and track the virus presence and its residual virulence in real world conditions without risks.

The project, supported by EIT Food's COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation projects, was started one year ago, when it was clear to Microbion that one of the main issue, especially for agro-food companies, would have been to ensure the safety of their products, in terms of spreading the virus, even long after the pandemic peak. In fact, using the virus itself to track it and test and validate the sanitisation protocols is too dangerous.

SAFEbion-V could be used on surfaces, products or packaging, or as an aerosol to validate the diagnostics methods in use and to validate and optimize the effectiveness of the sanitization procedures, with no harm (from UV light application time to ozone or chemicals concentrations).