Q: How can you tell if my surfaces are contaminated?

A: We use a process called ATP testing, with a hand-held luminometer that reads the residue collected from a swab and gives you a contaminant score in minutes. ATP is produced by almost all living things in their cell’s organelles called mitochondria. It stands for adenosine triphosphate and it is the major ‘currency’ of energy in the body. It is not energy itself, but rather temporarily “stores” energy in its phosphodiester bonds (the bonds between the phosphate groups of the ATP molecule).