Fernanda Santos, Ph.D., is a veterinarian, poultry scientist, and food safety specialist. During her veterinary training, her primary focus was zoonotic diseases and disease prevention. She then focused her work on pathogen growth in foods of animal origin. She has also studied alternative methods and nutritional strategies to improve performance and reduce Salmonella colonization in poultry. At North Carolina State University, her focus is food safety and course development. She is responsible for the graduate food safety minor and teaching several courses in the food science program, including food packaging and food laws and regulations. She has also created "The Discover Series," which is a series of food science-related courses that are taught not only to food science/nutrition students but also to any undergraduate student who seeks to understand the science behind foods and the controversial topics of food and nutrition.
Innovative packaging technologies that contribute to food safety include, but are not limited to, antimicrobial packaging, controlled-release packaging, nanotechnology, and biosensors. These technologies can aid in the control of not only spoilage microorganisms, which make the food product undesirable (but not necessarily unsafe), but also pathogenic organisms, which can cause illness and even death in humans. In the current economy, it may be difficult to make the decision to transition from a traditional packaging solution to an alternative; however, when product food safety is jeopardized and consumers are at potential risk, the food industry must do everything it can to prevent adverse scenarios.
