The audience will hear from bioinformatic experts from academia, food industry, and government that are working to develop and validate different sequencing approaches to characterize the microbial composition of fresh produce, probiotics and other foods and food environments.  Whole genome, 16S rRNA, and metagenomic sequencing are powerful tools to identify foodborne pathogens and improve understanding of how to prevent contamination. However, the large NGS data sets can present seemingly overwhelming bioinformatic challenges.  As the scientific community, particularly those involved in food safety embrace the many options for data generation and analysis – some degree of standardization needs to occur.  Methods for interpreting data will be presented and the road to validation for certain approaches will be discussed. This symposium will highlight some of the analysis platforms currently used to identify pathogens and characterize ecologies that play a role in contamination.

Presentations