The Direct Epifluorescent Filter Technique (DEFT)

Food, water, pharmaceutical, and medical microbiology ideally need methods of detecting, identifying, and quantifying microorganisms that can give results within a few hours. The many days needed for conventional enrichment, plating, and biochemical/serological methods to give results do not enable problems to be identified soon enough to allow the appropriate remedial action to be implemented. New methods must produce rapid, accurate, and reliable estimates of total viable microbial numbers, spoilage, or indicator organisms or to identify the presence of pathogens.