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Research aimed at licking
food poisoning
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[MARCH
29, 2005]
URBANA -- Eating potato
salad made with mayonnaise that's gone bad, an apple or lettuce that
wasn't washed properly, or undercooked meats are just three of the
culprits that can cause acute gastroenteritis -- more commonly
called food poisoning. It's the second-most common household illness
in the United States, with an estimated 76 million food-related
illnesses occurring each year. The University of Illinois is one of
18 institutions involved in a new program funded by the USDA that
hopes to reduce those numbers by finding out more about the
pathogens that cause those illnesses. |
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The program, called the Food Safety
Research and Response Network, will involve 50 food safety experts
who will investigate several of the most prevalent food-related
illness pathogens. U of I professor of animal sciences Bryan White
will lead the microbial ecology team. "Microbial ecology is an
integral component of pre-harvest food safety not only in the study
of host-microbe interactions, but also in the commonality of the
basic precepts of microbial ecology and epidemiology," White said.
White is a leader in the use of modern
molecular ecology techniques based on sequence comparisons of
nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) and genomics-based approaches, which
provide a molecular characterization of host-microbe interactions
and a classification scheme that predicts natural epidemiological
relationships. He has served on the USDA National Research
Initiative Food Safety Program Grant Panel for the past four years
and this year is serving as the panel manager for the Post-Harvest
Food Safety section.
The program will be looking at
pathogens like E. coli and salmonella to determine how they can be
better detected and what can be done to mitigate their presence in
livestock and produce in order to reduce the risk they pose to human
health. The program will focus predominantly on food-safety issues
on farms prior to the commodity reaching the processing plant.
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The Food Safety Research and
Response Network will also serve as a response team of experts. At
the request of other federal and state agencies, the team would be
mobilized to conduct focused research needed to control major
episodes of food-related illness. This could also include the
investigation of health problems associated with agricultural
bioterrorism and the deliberate contamination of agricultural
commodities.
Food-related pathogens can enter the
food chain throughout the farm-to-fork continuum. Interventions at
the farm level to reduce pathogens in animals should reduce the risk
of consumer exposure to these pathogens. However, the majority of
food-related disease outbreaks can be prevented with proper cooking,
storage and handling.
The Food Safety Research and
Response Network is funded by a $5 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and
Extension Service.
[University
of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental
Sciences news release]
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