Award details

Behaviour and prediction of microbial pathogens in food

Reference	BBS/E/F/04341058
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Michael William Peck
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Quadram Institute Bioscience Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	85,339
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1999
End date	31/03/2000
Duration	12 months

Abstract

This is a multidisciplinary research project combining the expertise of microbiologists, molecular biologists and mathematicians to improve understanding of the physiological and molecular response of foodborne pathogens to environmental (stress) conditions, to extend methods to predict the response of populations of bacterial pathogens to environmental (stress) conditions, and to improve methodologies for quantitative risk assessment. There will be two test systems, the first will address concerns about Clostridium botulinum as an emerging pathogen with regard to minimally processed foods (e.g. sous-vide foods). We aim to: (i) quantify the physiological response to environmental (stress) conditions as spores germinate and subsequently develop into exponentially dividing cell populations; (ii) explain these observations by understanding the underlying response at the molecular level (physiological, biochemical, genetical response); (iii) develop predictive models of this response (including the development of novel mathematical techniques to describe the response of individual members of the population, and to describe intrinsic inter and intra strain variation) for incorporation in an expert system for quantitative risk assessment. The second test system is the effect of food structure on microbial growth. Our previous research has identified occasions where food structure influences lag time, growth rate and the boundaries of the growth domain with respect to growth in homogeneous systems. We now plan to investigate the mechanisms responsible for these effects. Initial studies will characterise and model the internal detail of growing bacterial colonies using fluorescence imaging and CA tools, and will draw upon related projects in the theme. We also aim to be at the forefront of developments in methodologies for quantitative risk assessment for microbiological food safety. We aim to develop a probabilistic approaches to describe and then predict the variation in physiological response of populations of a selected foodborne pathogen to environmental conditions, to continue to develop novel approaches for handling limited uncertain datasets in quantitative risk assessment, and in particular to develop a framework for quantitative risk assessment of verotoxin- producing E. coli O157:H7.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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