USA, San Angelo, Texas. A bacteriophage is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria, and a university researcher is using them to destroy Salmonella bacteria in meat products. Amilton de Mello, an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno, was invited to present his findings at the American Meat Science Association’s 69th Reciprocal Meat Conference held 19–22 June at Angelo State University.
In de Mello’s experiments, meat products contaminated with four types of Salmonella bacteria were treated with Myoviridae bacteriophages during mixing. The Salmonella was introduced on refrigerated meat and poultry trim, and then treated with the bacteriophages before grinding.