Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 8/11/15


USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is constantly researching ways to improve food safety through better pathogen detection and interventions.

The agency periodically updates its list of research priorities. Some recent updates include:
• Develop improved techniques for species identification of meat, poultry and Suluriformes products.
• Develop practical in-establishment/in-field real-time screening techniques to identify samples requiring no additional laboratory analyses. These screening techniques could encompass microbiological (pathogens, indicator organisms), chemical (pesticides, veterinary drugs, environmental contaminants) and/or organoleptic laboratory evaluations.
• Determine the impact of intervention chemical “carry-over” on non-destructive (rinses, sponge sampling) and destructive (direct analysis of product) FSIS pathogen monitoring for a variety of FSIS regulated products. Where applicable, identify and/or develop approaches to mitigate the impact of intervention chemical carry-over on FSIS pathogen monitoring.
• Identify markers (e.g. genetic markers, virulence factors, peptides, enzymes) that are correlated to metabolic changes, disease severity and/or microbial phenotypic traits of interest to food safety and public health. Such traits include environmental adaptation and harborage, resistance to antimicrobials and other interventions, and/or pathogenicity.

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