IFSH Newsletter
TRAINING AND OUTREACH UPDATES
Upcoming courses to be announced at a later date.
IFSH EVENTS
2022 IFSH Virtual High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) Symposium – May 18-19, 2022
In our 5th Symposium on Food Safety & HTS, speakers from the FDA, CDS and FSIS/USDA will present the latest results of their scientific research and investigations along with new regulatory information about this new technology. Experts from the food industry, tech and analytical/consulting companies, and researchers from academia will present the news and their views. REGISTER TODAY! 2022 HTS Registration
UPCOMING VIRTUAL MEETINGS - SAVE THE DATES!
IFSH Annual Meeting – September 20-21, 2022
  • The IFSH Annual Meeting and Task Force meetings each year provides an interactive forum for our stakeholders from industry, government and academia, to share some of the latest developments in the FDA/IFSH/industry collaborative research programs. 
  • Last year's Annual Meeting had record high registrants of 221 registrants: 75 from industry, 36 from IIT colleagues/students, 110 FDA.
  • To view what was covered during last year’s IFSH Annual Meeting, click 2021 Meetings to access meeting details.

Task Force Meetings - September, TBD (Juice & Beverage Safety, Sprout Safety, Low Moisture Foods Safety and Toxicology PPP)
 
IFSH-FRI Annual Symposia – TBD

FSPCA Annual Conference – October 19-20, 2022
  • The FSPCA Annual Conferences are intended to serve our FSPCA community by sharing the latest developments in the various FSMA rule standardized training curricula and activities, providing support to FSPCA Lead Instructors and course participants, fostering an interactive forum for participants to hear from FDA officials on inspection results, as well as from industry leaders on experiences in complying with the FSMA regulations.
  • A pdf version of the presentations at the Annual Conference is available on the FSPCA website. You can also access prior Newsletters when going to the FSPCA website.
  • If you would like to keep up to date on FSPCA and receive future issues of the newsletters, click FSPCA Signup.
 
PEOPLE NEWS - New Appointments
Nathan Anderson, Ph.D., was appointed the position of Director, Division of Food Processing Science and Technology (DFPST), FDA, on December 18, 2021. Nate joined OFS in 2006 as a Research Agricultural Engineer in the Process Engineering Branch within the Division of Food Processing Science and Technology. Nate has a wealth of experience in conducting highly technical, specialized food processing and technology research and directing research teams. In addition to his research, Nate leads the Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) Low Moisture Foods Safety Task force and serves as a technical expert in the review of pasteurization and sterilization processes.

Professor Wei Zhang was appointed Interim Associate Director for Research at IFSH on March 24, 2022. In this role, Professor Zhang will co-manage the FDA collaborative research programs at IFSH and provide scientific expertise to FDA collaborative research programs and other grants and industry consortia and projects. He will also coordinate the IFSH Scientific Advisory Committee and the Food Toxicology Public Private Partnership activities.

Professor Wei Zhang received his doctoral degree in Food Science from Penn State, followed by postdoctoral training at CDC. Dr. Zhang has worked at IIT for more than 16 years, and is currently a tenured full professor of Food Science in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition of the Lewis College of Science & Letters. Professor Zhang is well-known for his research in the cross-disciplinary field of microbial food safety and bacterial genomics. He is the principle investigator and project director of more than $5 million dollars of competitive USDA research grants and FDA contracts, a National Food Safety Expert, and serves on the editorial boards of various top peer-reviewed journals including Applied and Environmental Microbiology (ASM), Food Microbiology (Elsevier), BMC Genomics (Springer), and Frontiers in Microbiology.
PEOPLE NEWS - NEW HIRES/ OPEN POSITIONS
NEW HIRES

Yuqiao Jin, Ph.D., joined IFSH on February as a Scientist Microbiology and Co-Lead for the Sprout Safety Alliance. Yuqiao isn’t new to IFSH. She received her M.S. in Food Process Engineering from our very own program at Illinois Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Washington State University. Prior to joining IFSH, she has experience working as a research associate in a college and a research project leader in the industry. Her research area focuses on food safety and microbiology.

Neha Singh, Ph.D., joined IFSH on Feb. 21, 2022, as a Scientist Microbiology. She is working in the joint IFSH/FDA Proficiency Testing Team. Neha obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences (Dairy Manufacturing) from South Dakota State University, a M.S. in Microbiology, and a B.S. in Bioinformatics from India. She is specialized in foodborne pathogens, and her research area included Listeria risk assessment and control in dairy processing environments. Before joining IFSH, Neha was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Genomics Sequencing Facility at South Dakota State University, where she worked on understating the molecular aspects related to resident isolates of pathogens in food processing environments. She also served as a Microbiology Scientist in the industry, where she validated pathogen detection systems for foodborne pathogens and provided food safety solutions to the industry, and is experienced in bacterial biofilms and their control in dairy processes, rapid detection and control of spore formers, alternative processing technologies, such as hydrodynamic cavitation, and ultrasonication to reduce spore formers in dairy products, antimicrobial resistance of food pathogens and injured cell recovery.

OPEN POSITIONS
·      Executive Director, IFSH: https://iit7.peopleadmin.com/postings/7888
·      Manager, Events & Outreach: https://iit7.peopleadmin.com/postings/8189
·      Assistant to the Director's Office: https://iit7.peopleadmin.com/postings/8190
·      Manager, Food Safety: https://iit7.peopleadmin.com/postings/8212 

ADDITIONAL NEWS!
CONGRATULATIONS TO NUTRITION RESEARCH!

Illinois Tech Joins Nationwide Study to Develop Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to Improve Personalized Nutrition Plans – Congratulations to Illinois Institute of Technology is receiving a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a nationwide study that will harness artificial intelligence technology to improve personalized nutrition plans. One of the challenges of personalized nutrition, also known as precision nutrition, is the cookie-cutter approach to dietary recommendations. Britt Burton-Freeman, Director of Illinois Tech’s Center for Nutrition Research, says differences in genetics, age, race, sex, and a variety of other factors mean that each person’s body responds to diets differently. These AI algorithms will use the data points to predict how various groups respond to food. This type of AI technology could make it easy for health care providers to someday put a patient’s medical history and health information into a computer system that can generate more personalized, effective diet plans tailored to that individual’s genetic makeup.
Published by the Institute of Food Safety and Health