Microbiological

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Through sampling activities and whole genome sequencing (WGS) analysis, a recent research project funded by the Center for Produce Safety (CPS) revealed insights about the movement of L. monocytogenes across a processing facility, the persistence of the pathogen, and the efficacy of biocides and sanitation practices.

Edible Garden has partnered with government and academic institutions in two studies: one to study the food safety potential of nanobubble technology in controlled environment agriculture (CEA), and one to work towards identifying sources of fresh produce contamination and mitigation strategies.

The University of Illinois, Cornell University, and Perdue Farms are partnering on a project to study policy and management approaches to further reduce Salmonella cases linked to raw poultry.

Further underlining the pertinence of mitigating the growing global public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), recent research revealed 40 percent of Spanish supermarket meat samples to be contaminated with multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli.

The World Health Organization of the United Nations’ (WHO’s) new manual, Five Keys for Safety Traditional Food Markets: Risk Mitigation in Traditional Food Markets in the Asia-Pacific Region, provides guidance on the implementation of five keys to promote public health and safety in the context of food safety, zoonotic diseases, and infectious respiratory diseases.

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) research enterprise in Singapore, the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), are conducting research to aid the development of nanosensor technology for the detection of foodborne bacteria.

Similar to the gut microbiome, foods have a diverse community of indigenous or native microbes that reside on a food product. These microbes are influenced by changes in temperature, salinity, pH, oxygen, and exposure to other organisms, resulting in shifts in the bacterial population proportions. These dynamics can be further influenced by adding new bacteria—or bacteria already present in greater proportions—to help influence and improve food safety and quality. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) has announced two upcoming public meetings of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI).

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are developing a vaccine for human norovirus, which is the leading cause of foodborne illness worldwide.

A recent study has added to the growing amount of evidence regarding the global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in foodborne pathogens, finding concerning levels of microbiological contamination and multidrug resistance (MDR) to critical antibiotics among pathogens isolated from pork and poultry meat samples purchased from leading retail outlets in Kenya.