Current Projects
A variety of cooperative, collaborative and contract studies are carried out in the Food Microbiology science focus area. To find out more about how your organization can benefit from IFSH's expertise and capabilities in this area, please contact:
Armand Paradis, Director, Business Development
708.563.8175 (office)
708.821.8615 (mobile)
Highlights: Current Topics of Investigation
- Evaluating the use of process water as a marker to determine the contamination status of fresh-cut leafy greens contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
- Assessing the effects of initial level of contamination, temperature, time, indigenous microflora, sanitizing rinses and package atmosphere on the behavior of E. coli O157:H7 in packaged leafy greens.
- Identifying combinations of time and temperature that may stimulate spores of C. botulinum to germinate and produce toxin under environmental conditions where these spores would normally remain dormant and that may occur during processing or storage, which may increase the risk of botulism in certain products.
- Examining the effects of various temperatures on the survival of viruses in fruits and vegetables to enhance understanding of virus contamination in produce and allow better control of infections associated with foodborne viruses.
- Comparing the effects of various cleaning procedures, including clean-out-of-place (COP) systems with combined with physical augmentation (high-powered ultrasound, HPU) to remove hard-to-clean equipment items contaminated with Bacillus spores embedded in complex food matrices.
- Comparing the most effective cleaning agent on the most difficult to remove food matrix embedded with B. cereus and B. thuringiensis spores, with and without use of high-powered ultrasound, and validating optimal CIP cleaning and sanitizing conditions using B. anthracis wild strains.
- Investigating the survival and thermal resistance of desiccated Salmonella in low moisture foods and dry processing environments, such as peanut butter, using microbiological and molecular approaches to identify extrinsic and intrinsic factors that regulate Salmonella resistance and survival under long-term starvation and desiccation stresses.
- Conducting comparative genomic analysis of Listeria monocytogenes for survival in food processing environments.
- Determining the transfer rate of Salmonella sp. from contaminated nut butters to food contact materials and the appropriate cleaning strategies for food contact materials used in nut butter processing and relative efficacy in the removal/destruction of Salmonella.
- Investigating norovirus cross-contamination during food service procedures used in the preparation of fresh produce.
Last modified: 05/02/2012 05:06:22
