UC Davis and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have developed a safer, more accurate test for pernicious anemia and other conditions related to the poor absorption of vitamin B¹². Details of the innovative test – which uses microdoses of carbon-14-labeled vitamin B¹² produced by a modified strain of Salmonella bacteria and a $2 million accelerator mass spectrometer to measure vitamin levels – was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery gives researchers a practical alternative to the current, near-obsolete laboratory test for determining if a patient's low B¹² level is due to the inability to properly absorb the vitamin. "The new test promises to become the 'gold standard' for determining if a person suffers from malabsorption of vitamin B¹²," predicted Ralph Green, professor and chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and lead author of the study.