Pathotrak’s mission is to enable a world with fresher, safer food and make food outbreaks a thing of the past. We strive to eliminate food safety risks by providing cost-effective technologies that benefit producers, expedite processes for food-safety labs, and, most importantly, save lives.

The original invention stems from the microfluidic research developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, College Park. A leader at NIST with experience at the FDA recognized and encouraged the importance of the work to expedite foodborne pathogen detection, and dubbing it as the potential solution to the “100 year problem in food-safety pathogen detection.” That work led to Pathotrak’s first patent, which became the 2015 Best Invention in Life Sciences at the University of Maryland.

Since then, the team has developed a portfolio of new inventions focused on expediting food safety tests tailored to different food matrices, sample sizes, and pathogens.