At Innovad®, we want to ensure that we have the means to do what we promise by continually upgrading our resources and skills to support our years of experience in the food/feed industry. As part of this commitment, we collaborate with the University of Ghent to fund research on biomonitoring as a unique new way of looking at diagnosing toxins’ impact on animals.
The presence of mycotoxins in feed impairs animal health and performance leading to economic losses. Monitoring mycotoxin exposure is important to diminish associated losses. Up till now, mycotoxins are mostly determined in feed. Feed analysis gives a good indication of the risk, especially the amount to which the animals are exposed. However, this information is general and no information is given about the impact on the animals itself. Our latest research focuses on the exposure assessment identifying biomarkers and developing the appropriate analytical method to determine toxic metabolites in animal biofluids. Such Biomonitoring could give more reliable results providing an indication of the real animal intoxication level and its economic impact.
In this context, the first peer reviewed paper generated by Marianne Lauwers as part of a 4 year PhD Research Program has been recently accepted for publication by the highly ranked Journal of Toxins* (IF: 3.273) as part of the Special Issue Application of LC-MS/MS in the Mycotoxins Studies and is available online.
This paper describes the validation of the methodology (LC-MS/MS and LC-HR-MS methods) for the right form of the mycotoxin determination in several animal species and matrices.
*Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651; CODEN: TOXIB7) is an international peer-reviewed open access journal which provides an advanced forum for studies related to toxinology and all kinds of toxins (biotoxins) from animals, microbes and plants. Toxins is published monthly online by MDPI. The French Society on Toxinology and International Society for Mycotoxicology are affiliated with Toxins.