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Environmental and food microbiology

Team role

The role of the team is to provide high quality research and scientific services in food safety, environmental microbiology and wildlife disease diagnostics. The main customers sit within the commercial sector, Defra, the Home Office, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the European Commission. We are major providers of surveillance for human pathogens in the food chain, and for zoonotic microorganisms in wildlife. The team applies its expertise in providing solutions to government and industry, and our knowledge and expertise enables all our customers to protect the food supply and hence protect human health and maintain public confidence. The team is internationally recognised as amongst the leading research units in its specialist fields, and has extensive collaborative links with colleagues in all continents.

Quality of Science

The team has UKAS (BS EN ISO/IEC 17025) accreditation for a wide range of methods, including pathogenic bacteria and botulinum toxins. Our scientific quality is assessed through independent UKAS audits and the participation in an external proficiency scheme.

Science Themes

Solutions to the Food Industry:

  • operates within a secure site and has a large suite of laboratories including Containment Level 3
  • offers a cross-cutting problem solving service involving microbiologists, molecular biologists, biochemists, chemists and statisticians
  • undertakes major surveillance studies for the food industry
  • undertakes large-scale, problem solving projects for major commercial customers including:
    • the evaluation of natural anti-microbials
    • challenge testing
    • shelf-life testing
    • modelling survival of bacteria
    • product development
    • HACCP reviews
    • hygiene audits
  • offers both traditional and state-of-the-art methods for detection and identification of organisms

Reference Materials

  • provides high quality reference samples for the FEPAS Proficiency Scheme
  • FEPAS offers both enumeration and detection tests in a wide range of real food samples including: beef, chicken, fish, milk powder, flour, and rice
  • continually researching and developing samples for the scheme

Molecular diagnostics

  • specialist molecular technology unit
  • offers bacterial identification and characterisation by fatty acid profiling, genetic fingerprinting and gene sequencing
  • offers real-time PCR and PCR for bacterial detection
  • development and validation of nucleic acid-based methods for rapid pathogen detection

Emergency Response Capability

  • operates within a secure site and has specialist facilities including a suite of Containment Level 3 laboratories.
  • expertise in the detection of containment organisms including E. coli O157, Clostridium botulinum toxins and Mycobacterium bovis.
  • provides research and services to evaluate risks from accidental or deliberate release that may affect the safety of the food chain.

Virology

  • dedicated specialised laboratories
  • development and application of rapid detection methods for pathogenic viruses in food and environmental matrices
  • research into control of virus contamination

Wildlife disease diagnostics

  • provision of diagnostic service for zoonotic pathogens in wildlife, including Mycobacterium bovis testing in badgers
  • development of diagnostic methods, including rapid molecular methods