Microbiology under the microscope
Microbiology issues are never far from the consciousness of those in the food chain with new issues are always arising, and keeping up to speed with developments is not easy.To help the food industry in this, Campden BRI in England is holding a two-day conference on 1-2 November 2011.
Fiona Cawkell, event director, said: “This year we will be highlighting four themes. The first is Pathogenic Escherichia coli – heightened in 2011 due to outbreaks from E. coli O104 associated with fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt.
“This will be followed by foodborne viruses – probably the most under-recognised cause of outbreaks of gastroenteritis.
“And then there is listeria. Cases of ‘listeriosis’ continue to make headlines on a world-wide basis, with the elderly seen as a group susceptible to this disease.
“Finally, beneficial micro- organisms – don’t forget the good guys. Many of the foods we take for granted today would not exist without the actions of microorganisms.”
Each topic will command a full half-day session – and will feature speakers from government, research and academia, and industry.
Among the speakers is Gloria Sanchez who obtained her PhD at the University of Barcelona in the Department of Microbiology (extraordinary award; 2003) related to the genetic and antigenic characterization of Hepatitis A virus. She moved to Nestlé Research Centre in Switzerland currently is a research scientist at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology in Spain (IATA-CSIC) working in the microbiology food safety area, dealing with method development and assessment of food manufacturing processes.
Another is Dr Kaye Burgess,a molecular microbiologist based in the Food Safety department at the Teagasc Food Research Centre, Ashtown, Dublin.
Her research interests focus on understanding the behaviour and virulence of microbial pathogens, in particular Gram-negative pathogens, in response to stresses encountered along the farm to fork chain.
Dr Roy Betts is Head of Microbiology at Campden BRI, and currently manages a large team of scientists and technicians. He is a recognised expert in food microbiology and related issues having developed the research area of rapid methods therefore giving Campden BRI an international reputation as a scientific centre of excellence within the microbiological field.
Another speaker is Sacha Lucchini who joined the Institute of Food Research as a postdoctoral student in 2000, where he contributed to the set up of the Salmonella transcriptomics facility.
He has a long-standing interest in how bacteria modulate gene expression and made significant contributions to the understanding of how Salmonella controls expression of virulence genes. In 2009, he was appointed as Research Leader and is currently leading the Microbial Ecology group at IFR.
(Visit http://www.campden.co.uk/food-microbiology-2011.htm for more details or contact Daphne Llewellyn Davies, d.davies@campden.co.uk or +44(0)1386 842040)