Culture Media SIG

The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) Australia, were amongst those seeking guidance in the area of Media Quality Control, being in the position of accrediting microbiology laboratories in the fields of biological testing and medical testing. They found little in the way of consistency and knew of no locally-applicable guidelines on which to base their assessments and recommendations.

A working party of the Culture Media SIG developed a set of guidelines ‘Guidelines for Assuring Quality of Medical Microbiological Culture Media’ which were approved in September 1996. This document has been widely used over the past sixteen years and has been acknowledged as a valuable resource by microbiologists in medical as well as food, water, and pharmaceutical laboratories.

The SIG’s ‘Guidelines for Assuring Quality of Food and Water Microbiological Media’, and ‘Guidelines for Assuring Quality of Solid Media used in Australia for the Cultivation of Medically Important Mycobacteria’ also form an integral role in accreditation and certification to relevant ISO standards. The Medical Mycology Guidelines will now add another aspect to this structure supporting good quality in media quality control and quality assurance.

The Food and Water guidelines inclusion of both food and water media was the inspiration behind the decision of ISO committee TC34/SC9 to include water media in the relevant ISO 11133 standard (currently in press), and parts of the International Standard have been heavily influenced by the Australian predecessor … from which we can draw great pride.

The existing three documents produced by the SIG and its members, posted on the website, and their referencing in NATA Field Application Documents for both Biological and Medical testing, has entrenched the importance of these documents to local certification requirements and are therefore recognized by NATA and Standards Australia as pivotal.

A major review of the medically-related guidelines was completed in early 2012, and the rewritten second editions of both medical microbiological media and solid mycobacteria media were submitted to the ASM’s Clinical Microbiology Standing Committee (CMSC) for ratification in May. A third document, ‘Guidelines for Quality Control of Medical Mycological Media’, began in the late 1990s and almost finalized in 2001, was finally completed in 2012 and was also submitted to the CMSC for ratification.

The Chair of CMSC indicated approval by CMSC to ASM Executive on June 26th 2012. This was in turn acknowledged by the ASM President the following day. These three Guidelines (medical media, solid mycobacteria media, medical mycology media) were launched to the ASM membership through the ASM National Office in August by direct email to Division 1 members, as well as to the SIG listed members.

Revisions are currently in process on the Food & Water guidelines document, with the aim of having these revisions completed soon.

These four Guidelines form a major interface between the Society and its members, as well as the broader – including international – microbiology community.

Australian influence and input into the new ISO Standard ISO11133 continues through ASM’s input into Standards Australia - through the many ASM members involved in the Food Microbiology committee FT-035 - but also through Standards Australia having direct and active representation within the working party currently preparing the ISO 11133 document to its final stages, via the involvement of the current Culture Media SIG National Convenor.

Direct links to the latest guidelines developed by the Culture Media SIG are at:

• Guidelines for Assuring Quality of Food and Water Microbiological Culture Media

• Guidelines for Quality of Solid Mycobacteria Media

• Guidelines for Assuring Quality of Medical Microbiological Media

• Guidelines for the Quality Assurance of Medical Mycology Media