Microbe Hunter

Scientist, innovator, and successful businessman, Bruce Bradley has developed a powerful new method for detecting E. coli on beef carcasses

Bruce Bradley's Rocky Mountain Resource Labs celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 1999. It is also celebrating a $900,000 National Institutes of Health grant, a vote of confidence in the expertise already demonstrated by Bradley (B.S. animal science '68, M.S. dairy science '71) and his staff in Jerome. The NIH funding will allow Bradley to complete development of a system that could help meat processors enhance the safety of their product.

A reorganization three years ago split the lab Bradley co-founded with a partner in 1979. Bradley focused his share of the business on microbiological testing of bulk-tank milk and mastitis samples for the region's growing dairy industry, plus testing of food, drinking water, and wastewater. "Anything that's tied in with microbiology, we do it here," he said.

Bradley's NIH grant is the second phase of an earlier $98,000 startup grant through NIH's Small Business Innovative Research program. "We are trying to come up with a better method to collect bacteria from carcasses and all food preparation surfaces, really," Bradley said. "The people at NIH and in the cattle and meat industries really see this as an important problem to be addressed."

Food safety inspectors in meat packing plants now wipe a sponge across the surface of carcasses, Bradley said. The sponges are then tested for the presence of harmful bacteria. Although the test is somewhat accurate, its results are highly variable because the sample areas are small (roughly 4 by 4 inches). Plus, the samples take a relatively long time to process.

Bradley's Vacuum Sampling Unit (VSU) samples much larger areas. The method relies on a specially formulated liquid spray to loosen the bacteria's hold on the meat and a vacuum to suck up the liquid and concentrate the bacteria.

Bradley is collaborating with researchers at USDA working at the molecular level to understand how bacteria attach themselves to surfaces. On meat, bacteria attach to fatty tissues that are hydrophobic, or water repellent, and chemically charged. The liquid used with Bradley's sampling unit will help break those bonds, detaching the bacteria from the surface for improved collection.

"We're hoping to not only get a better, more representative sample of carcasses," Bradley said, "but because this method can concentrate the bacteria, we can have enough material so we can tie it in with rapid methods of detection.

"One of our goals is to ... get a report to management by the end of an eight-hour shift, for example. This could save the industry millions of dollars and consumers' lives in some cases."

Bradley's earlier phase I grant from NIH allowed him to test the feasibility of his idea. In February, he received a patent on the VSU technology. The goal for the next two years of funding is demonstrating the method's commercial practicality. The final phase, which will be self-funded, will be to commercially produce and market the VSU system.

A successful businessman, Bradley still loves the basic search for scientific discovery. "I guess ever since I left the university system, I've wanted to get back into research."

Bradley, who grew up on his family's farm near Springfield, between Aberdeen and Blackfoot, likes being in business for himself most of all, though. "I'm still a farmer at heart, and I like having a little more control of where your life's going." But as in farming, "You're not really in control because sometimes the economy decides where you're going to put your energy."

Science and business aside, Bradley has a larger goal that reaches back to his farming roots: polishing the public's impression of agriculture.

"When I was attending the University of Idaho, I worked in the meat lab. With that background, and being raised on a farm, it always bothered me when some people complained about our farmers and food supply or thought people on farms weren't as smart," Bradley said.

"With all of the business about E. coli O157:H7 and dirty meat, that's bad publicity for agriculture, and I guess I've always tried to find ways to improve that image."

After earning his UI degrees, Bradley completed a doctoral degree at Washington State University in 1977. He worked in a post-doctoral program in the University of Vermont medical school before returning to southern Idaho in 1979 to found the lab at Jerome.

--Bill Loftus