Jianghong Meng
University of Maryland

Despite great strides made in the past decades, the detection of microbial pathogens in foods remains a challenging task. This is due primarily to several inherent difficulties associated with food analysis, that is, the complexities of food matrices (inhibitors and normal flora), the attributes of target analytes in foods (low level, heterogeneous distribution, and cell injury during processing), and the ratio between the amount of food samples and the detection assay volume. Genomics technology has been at the forefront of biotechnology for the past 10 years as well. However, the potential for the use of such a technology in food safety is still largely unrealized. This presentation will review the potential impact of genomics technology in food safety, particularly in foodborne pathogen detection, and provide information on recent developments in the field.