LONG-TERM OBJECTIVE
The Committee on Food Microbiology is committed to taking a proactive role in providing sound science to improve understanding and control of microbial food safety hazards to enable scientifically informed decision making. This is achieved through sponsoring break-through research and education in collaboration with academia, government, and industry.
ANNOUNCEMENT
ILSI North America Technical Committee on Food Microbiology 2012 Request for Pre-Proposals for Research Support
The deadline for the ILSI North America Technical Committee on Food Microbiology’s request for pre-proposals for the new 2012-2013 research grant cycle has closed. The Committee received a total of 37 submissions to the grant announcement; 3 from international investigators and 34 from U.S. investigators. The submissions came from three types of organizations; universities (29), private laboratories (7) and federal agencies (1). In addition, federal agencies were co-investigators with major universities on several of the research pre-proposals. Of the 34 U.S. submissions, 15 were from the east, 8 from the mid-west and 11 from the west. Currently, the members of the Food Microbiology Committee are reviewing the pre-proposals and will make final selections of those which will advance on to full proposals by the end of February. If you have any questions, please notify Alison Kretser at akretser@ilsi.org.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS
Journal of Food Protection Citation Award
The Journal of Food Protection announced a Committee on Food Microbiology-funded project as the second highest cited article in the Journal from May 2006 to 2011. The article is titled "International Life Science Institute North America Listeria monocytogenes Strain Collection: Development of Standard Listeria monocytogenes Strain Sets for Research and Validation."
Citation: Fugett E, Fortes E, Nnoka C, Wiedmann M. International Life Sciences Institute North America Listeria monocytogenes strain collection: development of standard Listeria monocytogenes strain sets for research and validation studies. J Food Prot. 2006;69(12):2929–2938.
North Carolina State University Investigator Receives USDA Grant
ILSI North America congratulates Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus, North Carolina State University (NCSU), on receiving a $25 million award from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Some of Dr. Jaykus's early work in this area was supported from grants provided by the ILSI North America Food Microbiology Committee. She will now be the principle investigator for multi-center study on noroviruses in an effort to design effective control measures across the food supply chain and reduce the number of foodborne illnesses caused by viruses.
In 2004, Dr. Jaykus received her first grant from the ILSI North America Technical Committee on Food Microbiology for her project "The Impact of Virus Survival, Persistence, and Transfer on the Transmission and Risk of Foodborne Disease." She subsequently received a second grant in 2008 for the project "Capture and Concentration of Selected Foodborne Pathogens in Complex Sample Matrices Using DNA and RNA Aptamers." The committee has always sought to be ahead of the curve in research funding, especially by providing seed money for basic scientific research projects of a progressive nature. The committee's initial support of Dr. Jaykus's projects is an excellent example of the success and validation of its grant process. The project’s timeliness and the long-term applicability of the research findings have aided in securing additional significant funding.
Dr. Jaykus serves as a scientific advisor for the ILSI North America Food, Nutrition, and Safety Program.
Citation: Liu P, Chien Y-W, Papafragkou E, Hsiao H-M, Jaykus L-A, Moe C. Persistence of human noroviruses on food preparation surfaces and human hands. Food Environ Virol. 2009;1(3–4):141–147.
Current Research
In advance of setting priorities for each new research cycle, the committee and its scientific advisors hold a research roundtable with representatives of the following federal agencies: the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the US Food and Drug Administration/Center for Food Safety and Nutrition (FDA/CFSAN); and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) of the USDA. The objective of these roundtable discussions is to identify emerging food microbiology research needs considered critical to public health.
Pathogen Prevalence Data and Risk Assessment; Identification/Validation of Appropriate Surrogates; and Novel Technologies for Sanitation of Dry Processing Equipment (2012–2014 Grant Cycle)
A request for pre-proposals is under development and should be issued by year-end 2011. Research awards will be announced by early summer 2012.
Salmonella in Low-Moisture Foods (2010–2012 Grant Cycle)
Recent outbreaks of Salmonella in peanut paste and peanut butter prompted the committee to issue an accelerated request for proposals related to technology and process to control Salmonella in low-moisture foods. To complement this request for proposals, the committee published a white paper titled “Critical Research Needs in Food Safety Microbiology” (Food Protection Trends, December 2009) to provide additional guidance on the issue.
The following three research projects were selected for funding:
- “Influence of Water Mobility on Persistence of Salmonella in Low-Moisture Foods” by Dr. Joseph Frank at the University of Georgia;
- “Improved Process Validation Strategies for Salmonella Inactivation on Low-Moisture Food Products Subjected to Thermal Pasteurization Processes” by Dr. Bradley Marks at Michigan State University; and
- “Thermal Inactivation and Survival of Salmonella in Food as a Function of Water Activity and Fat Level” by Dr. Elena Enache at the Grocery Manufacturers Association Foundation Science and Education Foundation.
Rapid Detection of Viral Pathogens and Control of Salmonella in Low-Moisture Foods (2008–2011 Grant Cycle)
The committee sponsored the following two projects:
- “Capture and Concentration of Selected Food-Borne Pathogens in Complex Sample Matrices Using DNA and RNA Aptamers” by Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus at NCSU; and
- “Inactivation of Salmonella on Raw Nuts Using Low-Energy X-Ray” by Dr. Sanghyup Jeong at Michigan State University.
Dr. Jaykus’s project is complete and a manuscript titled “Selection and Characterization of DNA Aptamers With Binding Selectivity to Campylobacter jejuni Using Whole-Cell SELEX” was published in 2010. Three additional manuscripts are pending. Dr. Jeong’s project is complete and the findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in a manuscript titled “Effect of Water Activity on Inactivation of Salmonella on Almonds and Walnuts Using Low-Energy X-Ray Irradiation.”
Addressing Salmonella in Low-Moisture Food Commodities
The committee provided consultation to the American Peanut Council on the detection, isolation, and quantification of Salmonella for testing a low-moisture commodity. Once the protocol was developed, data on raw peanuts were collected for the 2008 through 2010 crop years. Positive Salmonella strains were deposited in the ILSI North America reference strain collection at Cornell University, expanding to include Salmonella isolates. In April 2011, a workshop titled “Approaches to Setting Intervention Targets With Limited Data for Low-Moisture Food Commodities” was held. The goal of the workshop was to develop a protocol for determining pathogen prevalence in low-moisture food commodities, where large data sets are not available, and develop a decision-tree process to protect public health. The workshop used the raw peanut data as a model system for the discussion groups made up of committee members and outside experts from academia, government, and industry. Findings from this workshop will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Development of acceptable data collection protocols applicable to a variety of food commodities, beyond peanuts, has great potential benefits for risk assessments.
This work was made possible with a grant from the ILSI Research Foundation.
PRESENTATIONS
Symposia From the 2011 International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting
Symposium 1: Are We Forgetting About the Gram Positives—From Pathogens to Spoilage
Guy E. Skinner, FDA/IFSH, Bedford Park, Illinois
Ron Labbe, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
Jenny Scott, Office of Food Safety CFSAN-FDA, College Park, Maryland
Matthew Ranieri, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Steven J. Goodfellow, Deibel Laboratories, Inc., Lincolnwood, Illinois
Symposium 2: Diverse and Discrepant Non-O157 STEC: Data Differences
Rajal Mody, Center for Diseases Control Prevention, College Park, Maryland
STEC Pathobiology and Virulence
Lothar Beutin, Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin, Germany
Timothy Freier, Cargill, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Daniel Englejohn, USDA, Washington, DC
The Science Thresholds Presentation
This session commemorated the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA). The program included presentations from the perspective of clinicians, academic investigators, government agencies, consumer organizations, and the food industry. This was hosted as a join session with the FDA and International Food Information Council.
Symposia From the 2010 International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting
Symposium 1: Microbiological Environmental Validation and Testing: Leading Edge Issues for Low-Moisture Foods
Jean-Louis Cordier, Nestlé, Vevey, Switzerland
Steven J. Goodfellow, Deibel Laboratories, Gainesville, Florida
Donald L. Zink, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park, Maryland
Mark A. Moorman, Kellogg Company, Battle Creek, Michigan
Robert L. Buchanan, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
Symposium 2: Surveillance for Foodborne Disease: Challenging Phases
Marguerite A. Neill, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Andrea G. Ellis, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Timothy F. Jones, Tennessee Department of Health, Nashville, Tennessee
John Besser, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
G. Balakrish Nair, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, India
RESOURCES FOR FOOD MICROBIOLOGY INVESTIGATORS
The ILSI North America Reference Strain Collection: Expansion to Salmonella Isolates
Established in 2001 for Listeria monocytogenes isolates and housed at Cornell University, the ILSI North America Reference Strain Collection was expanded in 2006 to include the strain set and subtyping data that emerged from the committee’s Enterobacter (now Cronobacter) sakazakii. In 2008, the strain collection was expanded again to include the strains set of Salmonella resulting from the Salmonella low-moisture projects. Isolates from the collection are distributed for a minimal charge to researchers around the world. This unique resource provides investigators with a standard set of isolates that improves comparison of study data. The Committee on Food Microbiology continues to support the expansion of the strain collection to include Salmonella isolates. To access information on reference strain collections, click here.
PUBLICATIONS
To access links to resulting publications generated by funding from the Committee on Food Microbiology prior to 2008, click here.