A cheaper, at-home test for shellfish toxins is in the works

A project that could bring a low-cost home-testing kit for the toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning began its first phase of testing in Kodiak last week.

The North Pacific Research Board-funded project is testing shellfish samples in five Alaska communities to determine whether the technology in the home tests can accurately determine the level of toxins in shellfish.

Shellfish samples are being collected from the Kodiak Archipelago communities of Kodiak, Old Harbor and Ouzinkie and the Aleutian Island communities of Sand Point and King Cove. The samples will be sent to both the state Department of Environmental Conservation Lab in Anchorage and the Ocean Tester laboratory in North Carolina, according to Pat Tester, owner of Ocean Tester LLC, the company developing the kits.

Kodiak has some of the highest rates of illness related to paralytic shellfish poisoning, according to the state Division of Epidemiology. About 30 percent of all reported cases of PSP come from the region.

The illness is caused by eating shellfish contaminated with dinoflagellate algae, which produces toxins. PSP typically results in mild symptoms, including numbness of the mouth and lips, but can be fatal. It's found in shellfish around the state, including butter clams, mussels, cockles and razor clams. Currently, the only way to identify whether shellfish are affected is through laboratory testing.

Testing for the toxins that cause PSP costs $125 through the state lab. The Ocean Tester system would lower the price to less than $20 per test.

This is the first of three phases for the project, which could eventually lead to home-monitoring kits, though that is years down the line and subject to regulatory approval.

Data sets on when the seafood reaches toxic levels only go back several years, to when the Department of Environmental Conservation began monitoring for PSP in 2012 but ended in 2015.

The latest project will help pick that monitoring up again. Julie Matweyou, marine advisory program agent for the Alaska SeaGrant program based in Kodiak, said she gets lots of questions every year about harvesting shellfish and dealing with PSP.

With a warming climate, the traditionally "safe" seasons for harvesting may be shrinking, Matweyou said. The new testing could help people identify when those seasons are occurring.

"(PSP monitoring) remains a problem here," she said. "So we put our heads together."