Annual Report - Center for Food Safety Engineering - Purdue ...

Dr. Gehring and Dr. PaoliSince the inception of the Center for Food Safety Engineering, there has been a strong emphasis on interaction and collaboration withscientists from the UDSA-ARS Eastern Regional Research Center. This collaboration has been fostered through interaction betweenscientists during annual Purdue-CFSE/ARS-ERRC research planning workshops, annual participation by Purdue-CFSE and ARS-ERRCscientists in the Molecular Detection Symposium during the International Workshop on Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology atKansas State University, and more recently, an invitation for Purdue-CFSE scientists to participate in an ARS-FSIS (Food Safety InspectionService) research planning workshop, aimed at identifying specifi c FSIS needs.In addition, ARS scientists have hosted Purdue students and post-doctoral fellows at ERRC who are conducting collaborative research.These collaborative research efforts have been presented at scientifi c meetings and have resulted in several publications in peer-reviewedjournals.Drs. Andrew Gehring and Arun Bhunia have interacted extensively on their mutual interest in the development of a mixed cultureenrichment (Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Yersinia enterocolitica) in support of their work on multiplexedantibody-based microarray for detection of pathogenic bacteria from food. They have worked both independently and collaboratively on thedevelopment of the antibody-based microarray and have co-authored one publication on the subject. As part of her doctoral training, oneof Dr. Bhunia’s doctoral students, Kristen Nanchansky, spent a summer at ERRC working with Dr. Gehring developing a chemiluminescentimmunoassay for the detection of L. monocytogenes. In addition, Drs. Bhunia and Gehring organized and co-chaired a symposium onOptical Technologies for Industrial, Environmental, and Biological Sensing–Food Safety and Agricultural Monitoring for the InternationalSociety for Optical Engineering Photonics East.Drs. George Paoli and Arun Bhunia share an interest in studying the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Dr. Bhunia hasdeveloped and characterized a number of monoclonal antibodies against L. monocytogenes, and Dr. Paoli has applied antibody phagedisplay to select a single-chain antibody specifi c to L. monocytogenes. In addition to co-authoring a chapter on the bacterium in a recentlypublished book on the microbiology and molecular biology of foodborne pathogens, Drs. Paoli and Bhunia collaborated in supervising apost-doctoral study by Dr. Viswaprakash Nanduri on the development of a phage displayed antibody-based surface plasmon resonanceoptical biosensor for the detection of L. monocytogenes.International Collaboration: CFSE goes to ChinaBy invitation of Dr. Xianming Shi, the deputy director of the Bor-Luh Chinese Food Safety Center, Purdue scientists Arun Bhunia andRichard Linton joined USDA-ARS scientists (Shu-I Tu, Andrew Gehring, Yiping He, and George Paoli) and Dr. Jim Lindsay (ARS NationalProgram Leader for Food Safety) in China in May 2008 to meet with representatives from Jiao-Tong University in Shanghai. At the meetingan agreement was signed forming a joint U.S.–Sino Food Safety Research Center between ARS and the Chinese Ministry of Scienceand Technology. We had a very productive meeting and already have plans to work together with USDA-ARS and Jiao-Tong Universityscientists in the near future. While in Shanghai, the group also attended and presented at the 10th World Congress on Biosensors.Left: Jim Lindsay, National Program Leader for Food Safety from USDA-ARS, signs an agreement that begins a more formal working relationshipwith Jaio Tong University in Shanghai, China.Above: A group photograph with our new colleagues and friends fromChina.11Center for Food Safety Engineering