Producing safer poultry through a new class of antimicrobials

This story comes to us from Bioenterprise, a partner in the Agri-Technology Commercialization Centre.

AbCelex-logoMississauga – Each year, millions of North Americans fall ill after eating chicken, thanks to a corkscrew-­shaped bacteria called Campylobacter.

According to AbCelex’s CEO,  Dr.  Babaei, the solution could lie in a quirk of camel biology. 

In 1993, scientists made an intriguing discovery. Although mammals around the world have the same basic kind of antibodies, it turns out that members of the camel family also have a second type — one that is smaller, more stable and cheaper to produce.

Dr.  Saeid  Babaei  and  his  business  partner,  Dr.  Ali  Riazi,  saw  big  potential  to  use  these antibodies or their derivatives in livestock. The pair founded AbCelex Technologies Inc., negotiated  an exclusive worldwide  license from National Research Council of Canada and set  to work  creating  small  antibody  fragments—  so-­‐called  “nanobodies”  — to inactivate Campylobacter.

Their solution can’t come soon enough.

“Campylobacter is a number one cause of foodborne illness in the Western world,” explains Babaei.

More than half of the raw poultry sold in the U.S. contains this disease-­‐causing bacteria. In the U.K., it’s 65 per cent.

The AbCelex founders knew that any cost-­‐effective treatment had to be delivered in feed. That  means  engineering  nanobodies  that  can  withstand  the  high  temperatures  used  to process animal feed and the low pH and enzymes in the digestive system.

In the course of the last three years, AbCelex has made a tremendous progress in advancing their platform technology through the Campylobacter program in broilers.

Currently, they’re developing methods to increase effectiveness of their products against various pathogenic strains of Campylobacter, as well as being able to produce high volumes of their product at low costs.