This symposium will provide a progress update on the Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP).  The STEC-CAP is supported by a $25 million grant coordinated through USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) and administered through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).  The STEC-CAP effort is supported by a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary team of land-grant universities and government agencies led by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.  The team is conducting research and educating on how STEC contamination and outbreaks occur and spread throughout the beef production/processing chain, and on how science and technology can best be used to mitigate STEC risks.  New and enhanced knowledge from this work will yield practical, effective information and communication tools to reduce STEC risk from beef.  The team ultimately aims to reduce human STEC cases and outbreaks from beef, while preserving an economically viable and sustainable beef industry.  The effort focuses on the STEC that are classified as adulterants in beef by the USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service, viz., O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145, and O157:H7; in addition, it addresses enteroaggregative STEC O104:H4.  These eight serogroups and serotypes of STEC (STEC-8) are addressed in five main objectives: (1) STEC-8 detection—reagents, sampling plan, assays, technology, partners; (2) STEC-8 microbiology, eco-epidemiology, exposure risk, intervention targets; (3) Interventions for STEC-8 risk reduction—value, feasibility, cost-benefit, impacts; (4) STEC-8 risk analysis and risk assessment; (5) Risk management and risk communication through beef chain STEC-8 translational education, outreach and evaluation.

Presentations