Harmonized, easy to handle methods of analysis with defined patterns and known nomenclatures bring more customers to the market. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO.org) was formed in 1946. It is an independent, non-governmental voluntary consensus standard body based in Geneva, Switzerland with a membership of 164 national standards bodies. The US ISO member is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI.org) a consortium of US standardization organizations. There are 44 participating countries. The US delegation responsible for developing the US position for standards development in agricultural molecular biomarker analysis was delegated to the American Oil Chemist’s Society (AOCS.org) by ANSI. The AOCS US TAG also hosts the TC 34/SC 16 international secretariat. TC 34/SC 16 has published 21 standards with another 14 under development. SC 16 is working on a standard providing general criteria for development and validation of isothermal nucleic acid amplification analytical methods. Isothermal nucleic acid amplification-based methods are now being used to amplify DNA for detection, identification, quantification and analysis of biomarkers in food and food products. Isothermal nucleic acid amplification is a constant temperature polymerase mediated chain reaction. Some advantages are no need for precision thermocycling instruments, single assay printable paper chromatographic format permits for ease of use, in some cases use of unpurified cell extract as substrate and only a few preparation steps. The new ISO standard is applicable to food, feed, plant matrices, and their propagules, plant pathogens and animals and provides guidance for specific isothermal amplification technologies.
