The Federal Project Grant was awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310). The $591,500 grant will support the development of novel tools and pipelines to analyze and predict the presence and behavior of recurring, emerging, and persistent (REP) foodborne pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria. The University of Maryland, College Park will leverage genomic, phenotypic, and...
This $849,680 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310) will fund research at the University of Georgia Research Foundation to mitigate foodborne pathogen risk in leafy greens. Working with sub-awardees The Pennsylvania State University, USDA Agricultural Research Service Pacific West Area, and Kanvas Biosciences, Inc., the researchers aim to spatially...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) awarded a $150,000 project grant under the Capacity Building Grants for Non-Land Grant Colleges of Agriculture (CFDA 10.326) program. The grant will support Southern Illinois University's efforts to develop an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system to rapidly and accurately detect the presence of Salmonella bacteria in onion samples. The project aims to create a quicker, more effective method for...
This Project Grant award of $799,997.00 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, CFDA 10.310, aims to develop improved laboratory tests for detecting infectious viruses on produce like raspberries and lettuce. The key objectives are: 1) Improving a currently used commercial test by adding a biological step to distinguish infectious from non-infectious virus; 2) Testing whether a commercial machine can destroy viruses on produce...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded a $649,950 Project Grant under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) to develop and evaluate magnetic ionic liquids (MILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES) for the rapid concentration of foodborne viruses from food and environmental samples. This 3-year project aims to create portable, cost-effective methods for detecting low...
The University of California, Davis will receive $610,766 under a three-year Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The grant is part of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program. The university will define new control options for non-culturable foodborne pathogens like Salmonella and Listeria. Researchers will investigate how genome diversity, gene expression regulation, and induced evolution...
Purdue University received a $180,000 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (AFRI CFDA 10.310 program) to conduct research on food safety aspects of cellular agriculture, including cellular-based meats. The research objectives include: Conducting a food safety roadmapping exercise with industry and government experts to identify and prioritize hazards and data gaps for cellular agriculture products using a risk-based approach....
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (CFDA 47.084 - NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships) provides $550,000 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. to develop a prototype for rapid diagnosis of foodborne pathogens. The goal is to create a new one-test screening method that can identify bacterial contaminants in food in less than an hour, compared to current multi-step tests that take hours or days. This rapid diagnostic technology is aimed at...
The National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a $498,178 Project Grant to Cleveland State University from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program (CFDA No. 10.310). The grant will fund research from June 2023 through May 2026 to build tools using experimental data and mathematical models to predict the dynamics of Salmonella and Campylobacter pathogen transfer and survival during poultry processing scalding, chilling, and post-chill stages. The research...
This Project Grant award from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), will fund a $180,000 research project at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) to investigate Bacillus cereus, a foodborne pathogen. The research aims to identify genetic variants in Bacillus cereus enterotoxin genes that increase the bacteria's ability to produce toxins and cause harm to human gut cells. The project...